Is Immortality Really All Its Cracked Up to Be in The Lord of the Rings? – CBR – Comic Book Resources

Summary

The Lord Of The Rings set up tropes that would be used in fantasy storytelling for decades. J.R.R. Tolkien didn't invent Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins, or Dragons, but his conceptions of them would become common. A great example of this is Tolkien's Elves. In folklore, Elves were often tricksters, creatures of magic and madness who loved to bewitch mortals. Tolkien's Elves were quite different. While they were certainly magical beings, they weren't tricksters, but divine. The Elves were the first beings to awaken on Middle-earth and were known as the "favored Children of Ilvatar." The Elves were also immortal and lived through some of the darkest moments in Tolkien's entire saga.

Elvish immortality in The Lord Of The Rings universe is quite interesting because it's about more than just living forever. The fate of Elves is bound up with the fate of Middle-earth itself, and even the only death they can die - in combat - isn't actually the end for them. The Lord Of the Rings created modern fantasy, and the changes it made to the Elves are unique. Elvish immortality is something that is a bone of contention in Middle-earth between Elves and Men, but it's as much of a curse as it is a blessing.

The Valar are basically the gods of LOTR and they were the servants of Eru Ilvatar. Ilvatar showed the Valar the Music of the Ainur, a song that would become the universe and Middle-earth. During this music, the Valar and the Maiar, lesser divine spirits, saw the Children of Ilvatar, beings who would live in the world but would be different from the Valar and the Maiar. The Valar and the Maiar were given great power by Ilvatar and could exist outside Middle-earth. The Children were given different gifts and were to be the primary movers of the Music of the Ainur, the unfolding creation of Ilvatar, as time went on. The Valar and Maiar learned much about the Elves from the music, as they were akin to each other in many ways.

Middle-earth would exist for countless years before the Elves awakened. The Elves lived on their own for a time before being found by the Valar known as Orom, who would bring the three chief Elves - Elw, Ingw, and Finw - to Valinor to see the Valar. The Valar loved the three of them and invited the rest of the Elves to Valinor as well. The three kindreds of Elves - Teleri, Vanyar, and Noldor - would begin the journey to Valinor. Some Elves would stop their journey, choosing instead to stay in the lands they saw on the way.

To understand the way death works on Middle-earth, it's crucial to understand the fa and the hra. The fa is the soul, for lack of a better term, and the hra is the body. Elves and Men have both, but they are not equal. The Elves's fa is more powerful than that of a human, allowing them to perform greater feats of magic, and it is bound to Middle-earth. The Elves' hra is also different than Men's, as it's immune to aging and disease and is stronger in general. All Elves go to Valinor when they die and reside in the Hall of Mandos, the home of the Valar Nmo. Nmo was known as the Doomsman of the Valar, proclaiming the judgments of the Valar and helping to judge the dead.

When an Elf is killed, they wake up in the Hall of Mandos, surrounded by other Elves that were also killed. They are only fa at this point and have no body. This doesn't mean that they're ghosts, however, wandering through Valinor. They are consigned to the Halls of Mandos and cannot leave for a time. Eventually, Elvish fa are given a new body and allowed to live among their kindred in Valinor, enjoying all the fruits of the Blessed Realm.

Death for an Elf is a waiting game. They are immediately transported to the Halls of Mandos, spend an indeterminate amount of time - probably contingent on if they were "good" or "bad" in Nmo's estimation - and then are reincarnated into a body that is basically their old body. Once Men awakened, they would also learn of the fate of the Elves, which was quite different from their own.

Men in Middle-earth were weaker and dying of age, disease, and hardships. Wounds that could kill a Man often didn't kill Elves. When Men awoke, there was no Valar to guide them. It is believed that Melkor and his servants found Men first and put the fear of death into them. Men's deaths worked in a different way than Elves did as well. The Elves's fa was bound to Middle-earth, and they were meant to reside in it until the end of time. Men's fa left Middle-earth and it is not known what happened to them. The Elves and the Valar both believe that the fa of Men goes to be with Ilvatar directly, leaving behind Middle-earth.

Men are jealous of Elves for their immortality, but Elves are jealous of Men because they get to leave Middle-earth. This isn't possible for the Elves, although many believe that after the Dagor Dagorath, the last battle at the end of the world, the Elves will finally get to join Ilvatar. Elves eventually become weary of Middle-earth and desire to go beyond it, but never can. Many fear that the destruction of Middle-earth will be the end of them. Men think that Elves live forever, but for the Elves, their longer lifespan still leaves behind uncertainties over what comes next.

Dwarves basically get the same treatment as Elves, with a few key differences. Dwarves were created by Aul, the Valar of smithcraft, and given life by Ilvatar. Dwarves get to live longer than Men and are tougher physically, but they do die. They have their own wing of the Halls of Mandos, but unlike the Elves, they don't get reincarnated. They reside within the Halls until the Dagor Dagorath when they join the rest of the forces of the Valar in the last battle against Melkor. It is thought among the Dwarves that they will help Aul build a new world, but other than that, they have no idea what will eventually happen to them either.

The Elvish life cycle in LOTR is well-known to every Elf, but exceptions have been made several times. The first example of this is the tale of Beren and Luthien. Beren was a Man from the House of Barahir, one of the three houses of Men that were known as the Elf-Friends. Luthien was the daughter of Elu Thingol (formerly known as Elw, one of the first three chiefs) and Melian, making her half-Elf and half-Maiar. Beren and Luthien fell in love and Thingol told Beren that the only way he would allow a Man to wed his daughter was if he was brought Silmarill from Morgoth's crown.

Beren, Luthien, and Finrod Felagund, a king of the Noldor, went to steal one of the Silmarills, although Beren was mortally wounded during the hunt and would have left the circles of the world if it wasn't for Luthien. Elves can will themselves to die, departing their bodies for the Halls of Mandos, and Luthien did so. At the Halls, she sang a song of such sorrow to Nmo that the Valar retrieved Beren's fa before it could depart Middle-earth. Beren was sent back to his body and Luthien came back as well, but she was no longer immortal. Together, the two of them would eventually die of old age after having a child named Dior.

Dior was the first of the Half-Elven and the grandfather of Elros and Elrond. They were given a choice at the end of the First Age - they could have Elvish immortality or Mannish mortality. Elrond chose to be an Elf and Elros chose to be a Man. Tolkien never really explained if the Half-Elven were given this choice because of their divine blood or through a connection to the Silmarills but it seems like the only ones who got to make the choice were those of the First Age. For example, Aragorn and Arwen's child doesn't get the choice of the Half-Elven, despite being of the blood Elves, Men, and Maiar.

Glorfindel is a LOTR character who has only appeared in the books. Glorfindel stands among the most powerful Elves in Middle-earth. In Fellowship Of The Ring, Elrond sends Glorfindel instead of Arwen to find Aragorn and the Hobbits when the Nazgl are chasing them. The book establishes that Glorfindel is an Elf-lord of great power, one feared by the Ringwraiths. The text describes white light coming from Glorfindel when he first comes on the scene, and Frodo sees him as a glowing figure at the Ford of Bruinen. There's a good reason that Glorfindel had that much power, though, as he was a Noldor of the First Age, one who returned from the Halls of Mandos.

The Silmarillion sets up the Elven realms of Middle-earth like Gondolin, which is the last Elvish kingdom to hold out against Morgoth's forces. Glorfindel helped the survivors escape the city when they encountered a powerful Balrog. Glorfindel jumped out to battle the demon even though Elves usually lost against the Balrogs. However, Glorfindel was able to not only save the refugees of Gondolin from the Balrog but also kill it. He died in the attempt and went to the Halls of Mandos where he was eventually reincarnated. Glorfindel was sent back to Middle-earth in the year 1600 of the Second Age by Manw, and given the power of a Maiar.

Glorfindel is the only example of a reincarnated Elf going back to Middle-earth. However, in certain writings of Tolkien, there were two Glorfindels. One was the Balrog killer of the First Age and the other was named for him. Later on, Tolkien decided to change the story of Glorfindel, as outlined in The Last Writings, and Glorfindel of Gondolin and Glorfindel of Rivendell became the same.

Tolkien changed the way Elves were seen forever, taking them from the tricksters of folklore into noble, semi-divine beings. Their immortality was meant to be a part of this, but Tolkien didn't want it to be as easy as "Elves live forever." Instead, Tolkien linked Elves to Middle-earth, much like the Valar and Maiar who left Ilvatar.

Tolkien dealt with the sadness of Elvish immortality in the Akallabth. The King of Numenor asked a visitor from Tol Eressa, the Elvish island outside of Valinor that was part of the Blessed Realm, why the Numenoreans shouldn't be jealous of Elvish immortality. The answer was that immortality wasn't a reward for the Elves, it was just a part of their being. They were bound to Middle-earth and had to deal with the reality of never finding anything new; their lives were just an endless repetition with no hope of an ending. To the Elves, the death of Men was something special, as they got to leave Middle-earth and journey into the mysteries of the universe.

Looking at it from that perspective, Elvish immortality is as much a curse as anything else. The best an Elf can hope for is Valinor, but even then they will spend countless ages awaiting the final battle of the world and what comes beyond it. Elves' immortality is an illusion for mortals, as one day they will face the same uncertainty that Men do. Throughout Tolkien's Legendarium, there are multiple examples of it being more than just immortality, showing it for what it is - another tragedy, of endless separation with a mysterious endpoint.

The Lord of the Rings is a series of epic fantasy adventure films and television series based on J. R. R. Tolkien's novels. The films follow the adventures of humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits and more in Middle Earth.

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Is Immortality Really All Its Cracked Up to Be in The Lord of the Rings? - CBR - Comic Book Resources