The One Ring Forums: Tolkien Topics: Reading Room: Immortality vs mere existence (Brethil)

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Elves were meant to fade, but Men, Dwarves, Halflings, etc... were not. The 'fading' of the Elves was natural, and all other 'fading' unnatural

**Spiritually, they became obsessed with preservation. Perhaps they had an internal clock that told them subconsciously, that their time in ME was almost through. Te decay of 'magic' could also factor here as a dwindling of spirit. ** I think their 'magic' being a function of their spirit: to create beauty and art without domination. And thus yes: with the fading of spirit, I think that the 'magic' wanes. In relation to that, I wanted to mention a possible link between the mandate of subcreation (c'mon, you KNEW I was gonna have to say it eventually!!??) and the 'fate' of fading.

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(Ioreth) As with Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, the quest for knowledge, the use of the music, led them away from the purity of the original creation. From the time they chose to experiment, they started to dim what was given to them. Eru is perfection, all other things must be less and the farther away they move with their own creations from the original, the dimmer it gets. A built in part of Eru's plan?

With their mandate and their native desire to subcreate and change, that in itself changes original creation. A sense of inexorability in the Song - in that sense, the 'Fate' notion of the tales? (Brethil)

I am going to bring up 2 quotes today. The first is one that Tolkien quoted himself in an interview in 1968 after commenting that all stories are about death and the inevitability of death. It is from Simone de Beauvoir

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There is no such thing as a natural death: nothing that happens to man is ever natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die; but for every man his death is an accident. And even if he know it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation

Tolkien then states "You may agree with these words or not, but those are the - are the keyspring of 'The Lord of the Ring' "

That's a fantastic find. It ties up with something he said in 1958 as well...but firstThe second quote is from that other guy. You know the one I like to quote all the time: Gotcha!

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We must learn to die, and to die in the fullest sense of the word. The fear of the end is the source of all the lovelessness; and this fear is generated only when love begins to wane. How came it that this love, the highest blessedness to all things living, was so far lost sight of by the human race that at last it came to this: all that mankind did, ordered, and established, was conceived only in fear of the end! My poem sets this forth

So is this tie in that the elves natural fading is the slow loss of love that comes from an eternity away from the source of love? Do they fade because they become obsessed with art that imitates this love as they can never return to it in death? Is the unnatural fading of men that they can not learn to accept their mortality: "The fear of the end is the source of all lovelessness"? Is this why it is important that Aragron chooses the time of his death after a much prolonged life? Is it why Arwen chooses mortality?

I think that you have (once again Terazed) tied the philosophy of what underlies the tales with the intent of the author; and also with what we can walk away from these stories as both readers and mortals.

Here is the quote I mentioned above, that ties the ideas together : JRRT writes in 1958: "Though it is only in reading the work myself (with criticisms in mind) that I become aware of the dominance of the theme of Death. (Not that there is any original 'message' in that: most of human art & thought is similarly preoccupied.) But certainly Death is not the enemy! I said, or meant to say, that the 'message' was the hideous peril of confusing true 'immortality' with limitless serial longevity. Freedom from Time, and clinging to Time. The confusion is the work of the Enemy, and one of the chief causes of human disaster. Compare the death of Aragorn with a Ringwraith. The Elves call 'death' the Gift of God (to Men). Their temptation is different: towards a faint melancholy, burdened with Memory, leading to an attempt to halt Time." (#208, 1958)

So is the inverse here, as *That Guy* ( Wink

)suggests in the quote above and JRRT does as well, that the way to true love for and joy of life is to let go of the marking of Time? The fear of Time and the passing of existence is what coverts life (mortal or Immortal) into mere marking of days and yearning for ghosts of what was?

I agree with your point about Aragorn choosing his death: and it reflects the 'unfallen man' per JRRT. So there is the best in humanity, the unfallen example to follow: having lived fully, not marking time until the end nor making a cultus of the dead and gone, Aragorn embraces his end and. The absolute expression of Faith? Whereas the Ringwraiths - fallen - represent the ultimate failure of faith?

So in Elves, expressing their Eru-given skills in subcreation and subsequent change their statement of 'faith'? And the attempt to arrest change the (*cough* the Three) their failure - in defying Fate (if we define that as the inevitable change that will occur with Elves behaving as Elves should) and Eru's plan?

Arwen - we had discussed how she might have sought the shelter of the nuomenal-state of post War Lorien in order to be in touch with Aragorn (outside of Time). From the authorial sense, maybe Arwen's choice for mortality is that letting go of Time, and of 'limitless serial longevity.' Which sounds like what she would feel had she stayed Immortal but lost Aragorn.

These connections are simply fantastic. Angelic

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