Fearing the Dead?

[Ancalagon]

Dagorlad, have you by chance happened upon Harad? I think you would both get along swimmingly!

 

[aragil]

Dagorlad- my main objection to your post was about Earendil marrying his niece. Since Tuor was 100% human, and Idril was 100% elven, your figure for Earendil was still right (HE). My jab at Foster being 100% human was in reference to his not having any Elvish blood (there I go being presumptious). As for my reference to the letter explaining the eventual fate of E and E, I had already cited it to Eonwe in another thread, and I thought you might have read it.

As for Foster's opinion of Uruks/Uruk-hai, Greenwood and I are particularly upset with him because he is the first printed author (that we know of) stating that these are the same creatures. In most of the guidebooks published these days the two are equated as one, and Foster is the originator of this as far as I can tell (although he himself has conflicted ideas, as evidenced by the status of the chief's men). As far as I'm aware, there is no definitive word from Tolkien as to whether or not the Uruks were the same as the Uruk-hai (contextual evidence being different from a definitive word). IMO, Foster got it wrong- there's no evidence Sauron's troops are sun-tolerant, in fact Treebeard tells us that sun-tolerance comes from crossing orcs with men, which Sauron never did. If you'd really like to delve into the matter, check out http://thetolkien.forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2146
Just a warning, the thread is long and repetitive, but filled with good info, IMO.

 

[jimmyboy]

This is a very interesting subject, which I'd wondered about for a while, and more so over the last week or so. My opinion is that Legolas was an elf from the world of elves. He had little understanding of the world from a mortal's perspective, which to me explains why he has no fear or dread (all of which are learned, IMO) of the spirits of men. Why should he fear them? His world of elves has no death unless a person is killed, and so ghosts of the dead are not a part of his world view. They likely don't have ghost stories, haunted houses, etc, so Legolas has no referrence point, and therefore no reason to fear ghosts.

The sons of Elrond are (nearly) uniquely different. I believe they were elves, just as much (in quality, if not physical quantity) as Legolas. They had already been around for a long time before Aragorn came on the scene, yet they were still his cousins and close companions. They had always known the kings of men and their families (the Dunedain). Elrond could actually be considered Aragorn's uncle, though a great-uncle many times over. Given that Elrond and his sons had always had their lives closely associated with the world of men, it's a good assumption that Elladan and Elrohir had a great deal of knowledge of ghosts, and things related to men and death.

Now whether they too had any kind of fear or dread of ghosts, to me it is uncertain. But I tend to think that they at least had some kind of apprehension before walking the paths of the dead, as did Aragorn. Yet still they went and followed it through to its end, as did he, putting aside any internal objections they had.

Also note that when telling Merry and Pippin about the experience, Legolas seems to have learned something new of ghosts. I'll quote it again:

"He fell silent; but Pippin and Merry were so eager for news that at last Legolas said; 'I will tell you enough for your peace; for I felt not the horror, and I feared not the shadows of Men, powerless and frail as I deemed them.'

It seems to me that when he says that the ghosts of men held no fear for him, that he was speaking in the past tense. It appears that he now sees the spirits of the dead in a new light, and sees that they are more real than he had previously believed, and that they do have some kind of power. To me it's obvious that he's now hesitant to talk about it. Notice that instead of just telling them what happened, he goes silent. Then "at last" he talks about it. True, he "felt not the horror" when it was happening (when on the Path itself), but now he speaks in the past tense of "I feared them not", "I deemed them powerless and frail". Now, given all he's seen and experienced, he seems to think differently. So if they were all to walk along another Path of the Dead, Legolas would now think differently of it. As for Elrohir and Elladan, I think they'd had plenty of opportunity to learn of ghosts, both first hand and through the experiences of others. I tend to believe they had some kind of apprehension or dread before going with Aragorn on the Path of the Dead.