I think Peter Jackson was too afraid to let the elves be weird.
Because they are. So, so weird.
I don’t mean comical, I’m not looking to declaw them. But. How surreal, Elrond’s last homely house, in a valley that appears out of nowhere. You go down into it and there are elves hidden in the trees who sing extremely silly songs gently mocking you.
And the stay there was a great boon to the company, so clearly it was good - but also so, so weird.
And then there’s the wood elves. Thranduil is every inch a king. He has his people’s loyalty, he has held off the darkness for ages and ages without a ring, he has an extremely potent power which is all his own.
...he also wears twigs and berries as a crown.
I’m not saying he’s not majestic or regal I’m just saying maybe elves understand those concepts differently. It’s been a while since I saw the lotr movies but I’ve seen screenshots of Legolas at Aragorn’s coronation wearing a thin silver circlet. I think that is cowardice and unsupported by canon. Let elves be weird! Legolas is a wood elf. Maybe he just walks out into the forest before the ceremony and comes back with a ragged crown of live butterflies clinging to his hair. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, but, like - elves are not people! They are elves! Let elves be weird!!!
All kinds of small magic on middle earth are interesting to me, but the wood elves...I just think there’s some potential there. I saw a clip of Orlando Bloom as Legolas understanding the trees, but he was way too regal about it, in my opinion. There’s a dignity being retained here which strikes me as out of place. This a different species! With different norms and needs and customs!!! ELVES ARE NOT JUST MEN WITH POINTY EARS
...I don’t know. I’m nearly to the Greenwood in my reading - about a chapter or so away - so I guess I’m just thinking about it a lot. And to be clear, Peter Jackson did a good job with Lord of the Rings. His movies are iconic. I just find myself eternally disappointed in his elves.
Okay so as long as I'm thinking about elves and sea longing and the undying lands, here's an idea.
How does mythology in middle earth develop over time in regards to elves? What are they remembered for? I think public perception and the historical records would be two different things, in this case. Humans + dwarves, particularly as society developed and travel became easier, would have no choice but to think that the elves drowned at sea. I don't believe that the existence of elves would be disputed - they left corpses in battles enough, not to mention other and less gruesome artifacts - but their fate? Once all the lands had been mapped and explored, the only conclusion would be that the ships of the elves litter the ocean floor.
A whole species, extinguished.
So my point is that elves + ocean would be tied together in the public subconscious.
Therefore, whatever the real life cause of mermaid folklore was, when that same thing happened to ME sailors I bet you they went home and told their families that the souls of the drowned elves live on as mermaids, seeking to drag all other free Peoples down to the ocean floor to share in their fate.
...also the Irish in me thinks banshees would be elf-coded too. Endlessly weeping and wailing, with eyes forever red from tears? Sounds like a sea struck elf to me.
I think that this passage reinforces my interpretation of Thranduil as more of a wood elf in character than the Thingol-like image the dwarves seem to have of him. His cave may be his stronghold and a refuge for his people in time of need, but Thranduil himself does not seem to have much regard for stone or for anything mined from the ground. He owns jewels but forgoes them in favor of leaves and berries. He has stone but chooses to sit on a chair - not a throne, a chair - of wood. With his crown, his staff, his chair...Thranduil seems to take a lot of influence from his wood elf subjects. Certainly he doesn’t seem like the sort of person to disparage their culture and consider them lowly Silvans...mind you, I haven’t seen the Hobbit movies, but I have heard. Some things. About their portrayal of Mirkwood’s king.
Anyway. I think we could use the lack of information about summer and winter crowns to explore Mirkwood culture a little in fandom - since we know so little about it. I figure either spring and fall are special seasons to the wood elves. Given his rather humble way of dressing, I wonder if Thranduil even wears a crown in summer or winter. Or perhaps those seasons are the significant ones, and he wears formal crowns then? But I don’t get the sense that wood elves have the same ideas of formality as the rest of middle earth. I’d love to see someone play around with some of these ideas in fanfiction. I think the Thranduil I’ve seen in fandom is nearly entirely based on the movie version. And I’m not condemning that version - clearly it was impactful for a lot of people - I’d just love to see book!Thranduil reconsidered.
things that should not have been forgotten (were lost)
"You know I think your Da was a bit shit, actually."
Carnistir- Caranthir- blinks up at Eol the Moriquendi, or as they seem to be calling him now Annamire. The Dark Elf had been nominally placed with the quartermaster and had been quietly polishing armor and sharpening swords, which kept him from the greater discussions of the High King and the various Lords of Elves and Men who were planning the military campaign.
So how he'd wound up in the bursar's tent is lost on Caranthir entirely.
It's long after dark and Caranthir and Eol are the only two in the tent, the other accountants and logisticians long gone for the evening.
"And why do you feel the need to tell me this, or presume I care?" Caranthir replies. He finds it easy to speak to Eol, unlike the rest of his brothers. Maybe he's spent too much time with the khazad, because Eol talks much like they do- straight and to the point.
"Eh. You were closest." Eol crouches on a low chair like a bird, head tilting this way and that. Caranthir has found that the more one looks at him, the more one sees that is alien to the form of elves as they know. Is it his age? Where he was born? Is something in Eol inherently twisted, a different twisting than what made orcs but enough that the Light turns from him?
"Why do you look like that?"
"Like what?"
Caranthir gestures. "Like that. Weird."
"It's only weird because the weird ones stayed behind."
Caranthir blinks.
"Never saw your grandda do that thing with his fingers, did you?" Eol asks.
Caranthir is struck by a sudden memory- Finwe in the garden, reaching for a rose, fingers slithering between the thorns and closing tighter than they should have, like he had an extra joint on each.
"Ahhh," Eol says. "I see you did."
Caranthir sighs. "My grandfather's fingers were long."
"They had extra joints. Never saw anyone who could hold a tool like Finwe. Your grandmother may she be a rock in Bannoth's shoe until the end of all songs, had teeth that could crack stone. I understand Rumil was your tutor. Did he still wear those shoes? The ones that let his claws air?"
Caranthir swallows. "He wore large boots. Larger than he needed."
"No doubt Finwe had long sleeves and Therinde only ever took small bites," Eol says with a bitter little smile. "And under all that Light and singing not a one of you was born interesting. Well. Maybe your oldest brother, he's very tall, but to me you all look tall so that's not saying much."
"So all of you?" Caranthir asks. "All of you were born- different?"
"A good many of us, aye." Eol replies. "What we had shaped us. Finwe with his fine little tools, making everything more complex. Therinde holding her spindle in place, holding the leather up to measure."
"And you?"
"Looking ahead and behind," Eol says, "and deep into the dark."
Caranthir looks down at his book of sums. He thinks of Rumil and how he had always seemed slightly unsteady.
He thinks of his father, and how he had burned.
"Do you think-" he begins, then stops. "Surely you heard how King Noldoran died?"
"Which one?" Eol asks ruthlessly. "Caus' the first one went and got himself got by the Rider, undoing YEARS of my hard work, and the next one got himself burned to death and- oh."
Eol's head turns- and turns- and soon he is looking at Caranthir from an angle that on any other elf would turn them into a corpse.
"You think he was weird, too." Eol says. "The burning."
Caranthir forces himself to keep looking at Eol, though the very sight of the twist in his neck has made gooseflesh rise on the feanorian's arms. "My father did not even leave a corpse, so great was his wrath. His birth drained my grandmother's spirit away."
Eol shrugs and his head slowly lifts back to a normal position. "S'possible. Couldn't tell you for sure, since we never met. Not that it would have been a pleasant meeting, I reckon."
Caranthir is sure of that. Maedhros has the grace to see through Eol's blunt rudeness and lack of noble position, observing the keen mind and centuries of knowledge and experience they sorely need. Feanor...would not have.
"Can you do it on command?" Eol asks abruptly.
"Can I what?" Caranthir blinks.
"The red thing. With your face."
In response Caranthir blushes in anger and Eol shakes his head. "No not like that. When you're thinking about it."
"I don't know, I've never tried, why would I try?" Caranthir demands.
Eol smiles and there's something eerie about it. It's in how wide his mouth seems.
"Another thing your grandma was good at," Eol says, "was dying garments. She made the prettiest red. I dream about it, sometimes. She did one of my favorite hair shawls. Do you know how she did it?"
"Why would I know that?"
"She would bleed in still water, and sing her most secret songs. Never a madder or elderberry that could match Therinde's red."
Caranthir thinks of his grandfather's red over robes. Of the red roses in the garden. Of the rubies in the throne at Formenos.
"You think my red is like my father's fire," Caranthir says. "You think it's like your eyes or grandfather's fingers."
"Could be." Eol says. "Could not be."
"What good is being able to flush on command?" Caranthir demands.
"A flush is blood, isn't it?" Eol says. "Lots to be done with blood if you're brave. I misspoke earlier."
"Oh? And how did you do that?" Caranthir asks, deciding he is done with this conversation and done with the Moriquendi.
"Sure, your Da was a bit shit," Eol acknowledges, "what with antagonizing everyone and then dying. But you lot don't know anything. Nobody told you. So nobody told him. And fathers are supposed to tell their sons things, so Finwe was more shit."
Caranthir feels an immediate surge of anger. "My grandfather was a great and noble king!"
"Your grandfather once went face first in a lake full of lily pads because he thought he saw a snake in the road and jumped sky high screaming like a bluejay," Eol retorts. Caranthir growls and stands. "My brothers may accept your ill tongue and crassness but I will not," he hisses. "get thee from my sight, dark elf."
"Ah hold your swan boat I'm going." Eol flaps a hand and hops off the chair. "Do all you lot good to remember a king's just an elf."
"I fail to see how we can forget," Caranthir says tightly. No wonder Curufin hates him so much.
Eol looks over his shoulder at Caranthir, head turning so that he is almost fully facing the other elf despite the rest of his body still pointing towards the tent exit. This time Caranthir cannot suppress his shiver.
"Forgetting's what got all you into this mess in the first place," Eol says, sounding ancient and haunted. "and remembering might cost you more than you want to pay, Lord of Thargelion."
Then he's gone from the tent and Caranthir can at last breathe again. The dark haired elf sits down and tries to finish his sums, but the numbers swim and he gives up in disgust. There has to be a wine bottle around this valar-foresaken campsite that will put him under for the evening. If he can't find it, Curufin can.
Caranthir closes his log, locks up his papers, and departs into the night, trying to ignore how cold the wind seems to be blowing.
So I love your writing as a whole. I don't usually dip into DC fandom because nothing lives up to my love for YJ and JLU (you do though, just saying). But. I love your weird lobster elves. They're so good. I caught like five minutes of LOTR on TV and I just. Couldn't stop imagining Arwen talking like your lobster elves talk. Regular elves no longer do it for me, I need totally inhuman trash talking asshole elves.
Ahahaha omg Arwen getting caught off-guard and laughing like a fucking dolphin and now she needs to kill everyone that witnessed her indiscretion because Those Are The Rules
Legolas eating crickets
It would put such a different spin on the Galadriel hair thing
Basically we should keep LotR elves a million miles away from my weird garbage elves but I’M GLAD SOMEONE ELSE LOVES THEM someday i will do more with them because i did not even half get into all of their nonsense oh my gosh
Haha don't worry, iw anted a long answer this is why I asked you because I just looove to read your opinions on things so thank you!!! (Plus Ive learned thanks to your answer, I didnt know elves dont sleep?!).
Oh yay! Cool! I can’t seem to control my fingers once they start. Long things just come out and I’m like “no wait come back...” but they’re all necessary to explain the point and gah! So, good:)
But at least one person likes my opinions! Yay!!! Thanks, boo-bear!
No, elves don’t sleep! Not really. They more go into a meditative state. This is from The Two Towers:
Legolas already lay motionless, his fair hands folded upon his breast, his eyes un-closed, blending living night and deep dream, as is the way with Elves.
They sort of fall into that state like Gandalf was in when Pippin stole the crystal ball, where they stare unseeingly, I guess?? I know, it’s so weird! I just learned it recently, too. But I still write elves sleeping because it’s just so weird to think of something as never sleeping (coughTwilightcough). But I’m extremely hypocritical, because when I read someone else’s writing and they write that an elf sleeps, I always say to myself, “But elves don’t sleep!” so yeah... But I still write it so whatevs.
I’ve learned a lot of things from going on wikipedia or those wikia pages for elves and stuff while writing. Research never ends *sighs*
One of the things I really liked about the hobbit elves is that the film saturation made the elves 500% more glowy and I was actually digging that SO HARD.
I need to come up with some sort of equivalent to victorian flower language only with dead animals. I'm working on some vaguely cat inspired elves that this would apply to and I need to decide what it would mean if one left a crocodile they killed in your foyer.
