Different Fates

[Huan]

I was just thinking...........

Although Elves and Men have different fates (ie bound to the Earth and not) it is always implied that no one fate is superior to the other. Men SEEM to think that their's is worse as they have shorter lives etc but Tolkien always tries to refer to Man's mortality as "the Gift" of Illuvatar to Men and somewhere (not sure where tho) some Elves seem to express envy that Humans can leave Middle-Earth once they are weary with life and are not bound to it like they are.

Since apparently no fate is better than or prefferable to another why cannot a mortal upon marrying an immortal chose to become immortal?

We see that Arwen has to become mortal and "diminish", (incidentally another way in wish "Man's Gift" is subtley made to appear less attractive). Why not Aragorn become immortal ?

I think that the point I am trying to make is that despite Tolkien's best efforts to deal with death and Man's mortality, it always comes accross to me that the Elves have the "better deal".

Any thoughts ?

 

[Melko Belcha]

You can look at it that way but I see the Elves as extremely sad. Imagine if you lived in Europe just over the last hundred years and living through both World Wars and the destruction of the places you love.
Take the Sindar after the First Age, they lost their entire land in the war and then when they get settled in Sauron shows up and war is begun again.
Galadriel is a great example, she saw the death of the Trees, the Kinslaying, crossed the Helcaraxe, saw the destruction of Doraith, the ruin of Beleriand, the wars of the Second Age, and all the Third. Galadriel is defantley a very sad but also very wise Elf.

 

[Confusticated]

Since apparently no fate is better than or prefferable to another why cannot a mortal upon marrying an immortal chose to become immortal?

We see that Arwen has to become mortal and "diminish", (incidentally another way in wish "Man's Gift" is subtley made to appear less attractive). Why not Aragorn become immortal ?

Well Arwen did not get to choose because she married a mortal, but made the choice she did because she wanted to stay with Aragorn.

Someone else may be able to give more information, but I have got the impression that it was only those descendants of Earendil that got the choice of which kin they would belong to. I have taken this to be the reason that Arwen could choose, and that her love of Aragorn has nothing to do with her having that option to choose.

I would suggest reading the Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth in Morgoth's Ring, that is HoMe X, if you have not yet.

In that Finrod has a conversation with a mortal women concerning the fates of men and elves.

They also end up discussing the unions of men and elves, and Finrod gives reason for why such things should not be, when Andreth insists that they should. It tells of an elf who loves a mortal woman but chooses not to be with her, and there is no mention of him having an option to choose mortality, or her immortality. It relates to a lot of your comments, and is a beautiful conversation besides that.

It sometimes enters my mind that elves got the better deal, but that is only when I think that maybe men have been turned to evil beyond redemption, the race as whole... I am skeptic about the "goodness" in men. I sometimes view the good people as the exception, a small few who will make it to whatever was orginally planned for them. This is pure speculation though, and I do not fully believe, but it is sometimes a passing idea. It could very well be that those who fall to evil will be healed somehow.

But I also think that any being who falls to evil completely, will know that as his/her existance and be no worse off than those who are good.

But who can say how great the greif of the elves or any envy of mortality will be? That in itself may be worse than having lived a short life in fear of death, and inclination to evil.

One thing is a fact though, Iluvatar says that elves will have the greater bliss in Arda.
Iluvatar says other things in Ainulindale, especially in the Book of Lost Tales version, that are interpretated by me as meaning that in the end, or after the end of Arda, the race of men will understand what everything was for,and I think that they might then be "free of evil" (for lack of a better term), and can then enjoy bliss, knowing it for what it is having been through hell. In the Athrabeth, Finrod even gets an idea of elves and men dwelling together in Arda remade. Reading it is a must.

I can say that my views about the fairness of the existance of elves and men have changed since I read it, and other things in HoMe.

I was once of the thought that the elves were better off all around, but now I think the answer to the question can not be knownm but only guessed at.

The Eldar have one kind, and ye another; and each judges the others by themselves - until they learn, as do few.

Finrod says that to Andreth, and I do believe it is true, and because of it we can really only judge this from the point of view of men. Also, men and elves look at the world differently.

It could be that in the end, both races will have thought that one race had a better existance,... but I suspect that in the end, each race will better understand the other, that they would consider that neither of the two had it better.

 

[Ardamir the Blessed]

The Silmarillion, 'Of the Beginning of Days':

Death is their fate, the gift of Ilúvatar, which as Time wears even the Powers shall envy.

 

[BlackCaptain]

It's a gift that only time can show the value of. Elves would be bound to the earth forever, never to leave. Would'nt that get boring after a really really long time? Men however, can die, and leave the world. I'd want to be immortal, but not for eons

 

[Ardamir the Blessed]

The life of the Númenóreans seems to be an appropriate mix of the two: living much longer than the Men of Middle-earth, and still not having to live forever. But, as we all know, this 'in-between' state brings longing for immortality, which Men must not get.