I dont generally long for any fantasy to be true, but the idea of meeting the last remnants of Tolkien's elves in some peaceful forest pulls strongly at my heartstrings.
Re the Tragedy of Arwen... She receives the Doom of Men - which is also the Gift of Men - so I would say her passing is no tragedy, though getting there may be a bitter journey given her grief. Her spirit will pass in the same way as all men - beyond the world to an unknown fate. If we think of this as Heaven - then she would perhaps be reunited with Aragorn.
They go to the halls of Mandos. All had a piece of the flame imperishable within them. Also: doom in this era didn’t always mean something bad. Just full of destiny and fate, ominous etc. and then after DagorDagorath the world is remade with the second song of the Ainur together with Men and Elves and Dwarves. They help Aulë reshape the world etc. this in full detail of the three Ardas is in GirlNextGondor’s most recent giant Nienna video
yes, she went onto wherever men go and met up with Aragorn again. Which to be honest is better than hanging out in the halls of Mandos for however long and then ending up right back in Valinor to live for like, forever.
@@Makkaru112 : Yes, the spirits of Men go to the Halls of Mandos after they die. But only temporarily - until they are ready to make their final journey into the unknown, beyond the circles of Arda. Some believe that they are then reincarnated in other worlds - after all, there is no proof that Arda is the only world created by Eru.
Tolkien's writing in 'Nature of Middle Earth' tell us that Elves bodies would eventually cease to exist and they would just remain as spirits in the World. Thanks for the great video!
You forgot about Elladan and Elrohir. It is stated that they stayed in Middle-Earth even after Elrond departed for Valinor, and that Celeborn came to stay with them before he too departed for the Grey Heavens. The brothers' final destiny is afaik unknown
I assume they left, they had been a part of the Grey company. They had done all they could. They left their mortal sister and left with their father to see their mother and kin.
No. They did not depart with Elrond. Frodo and Bilbo went on that ship. Elladan and Elrohir could have remained until Arwen died, then departed on their way on another earlier ship. This video also forgets that The Last Ship also had another passenger. Samwise Gamgee. He was also on the ship, because he was a Ring Bearer.@@thomasalvarez6456
@@michaelreifenstein2114 I dont think that's necessarily the case either. The video even mentions that Aragon, on his deathbed, says to Arwen that she can still chose to go across the sea. Besides, the 'choice' doesnt seem to be time-limited. Elros and Elrond made their choice millenia before the timeline of LotR and Arwen is already well-beyond the lifespan of mortals when she makes her choice. Her brothers could have made either choice, but the fact is that we dont know wether they stayed in Middle-Earth or not
From what I got from Tolkiens text was the following: Most of the Calaquendi left middle earth, which would include Celeborn, Elladan, Elrohir and Cirdan. Thranduil is another matter, as he was a Sinda, but not from a line of Olwe, Elwe or Elmo. He may have left, but I think he stayed with his people in Mirkwood. The Noldor and Sindar leave and the last ship was Cirdans, who took with him the other two with "crowns." This could be Celeborn and Thranduil or someone else entirely. There is reason to believe that Celeborn left before Cirdan, because he left his new realm of East Lorien after a few years, stayed with Elladan and Elrohir and then departed to be with Galadriel. I guess that the other two rulers where Elladan and Elrohir, because they seemed to have inherited the rule over Imladris from Elrond and Celeborn went there to stay with them. Now to the other elves: We know that Lothlorien was deserted when Arwen went there after Aragorns death and most of its inhabitants went to East Lorien and lived there. Lindon was also inhabited by elves, as was Mirkwood and Ithilien. Most - if not all - of those elves where Moriquendi, so Nandor and their descendants, the Tawarwaith. They where described by Tolkien as being less wise, but more dangerous than the Noldor or Sindar and much more in tune with nature. We can assume that their fate was what Tolkien wrote in the Silmarillion - that they would fade and become spirits of nature and the woods, without form and body, but still there. The Nandor loved their woods more than anything and they never gave a toss about the sea. So they will of course stay and inevitably fade. At the end of the 3rd Age most elves already are on the move to leave, like Gildor and his company indicate. They keep the havens open for all who wish to leave. So this also means that some dont wish to leave as well. Galadriel decided to leave because she understood that Nenya would fade and she would not be able to keep time and her longing at bay anymore. Also she conquered her worst attribute - her pride - and was then accepted back into Valinor by the Valar. Arwen chose a human fate and death, so she is out of the picture. Elladan and Elrohir succeed Elrond in Imladris, Celeborn founds a new realm, Thranduil stays and rules his kingdom and Legolas even founds his own princedom as well. What happened to Maeglor, Daeron, Elured and Elurin is not secure so they are out of the picture for now. So we still see development from the elves, just not from the Calaquendi but from those who always stayed in middle earth. The Reunited kingdom of course would have a good relationship with them, as would Dale and Rohan or Erebor and the Iron Hills. I think elves where still a sight in the early fourth age, rare but still around but they would have kept to themselves and stayed inside their forests. Maybe their immortality also faded and when they "died" they became spirits of nature. With the rise of men also came the coming of industrialization. This of course would clash with the wood loving Nandor / Tawarwaith who still remained. I remember that Tolkien wrote in one of his letters to his wife that some of the creatures in his story are metaphors for the world - Tom Bombadil is the embodiment of the spirit of the countryside close to his house; unchanging and powerful. The elves are creatures out of the new world that comes after them and they will fade into that as something new - spirits and echos.
@jeremygreenwood1021 And if they aren't Feanor, they get a new body and get to enjoy the society of Aman. I never did understand why or how long the Faer was held or for what reason. To teach them not to die? I like to see it as a quiet time for the healing of trauma.
@@Stevie-L-n8g Trust me, I have. Almost all of them in my library except The Letters. Honorable people can differ on which of the history is correct and what can be inferred from it. One is like a historian trying to reconcile different contemporary accounts, depending on point of view.
What I always found strange was Arwen. I understand her grief, yet she had children who would live much longer than other mortal men, and grandchildren, great grandchildren etc. seeing them grow and live would have been a blessing, and of course a curse watching them die. But still, I can’t imagine leaving my children if I had the opportunity to watch them grow and live.
I always pictured some elf going to the Shire to help with the Red Book, adding tales that Bilbo or Frodo may not have known about, before fading away . . .
Yes perhaps they stayed. But dissolved is not quite the right word. Over time their spirits consume their physical bodies and they become invisible to the eyes of men. That will be the fate of the elves that remain in middle earth.
"And of Maglor it is told that he could not endure the pain with which the Silmaril tormented him, and he cast it at last into the sea, and wandered ever after along the shores, singing songs of pain and regret beside the waves...but he came never back among the people of the elves." A sad fate, he deserved better. 😞
Since this was Tolkien's original intent to write a legendarium about the Folklore of the Fae for the British Isles, and how they diminished over time, I suppose we can assume that elves stayed along with other elementals.
I believe Tolkien mentioned in The Hobbit that both "rustic Wood Elves" and Hobbits still were present in the current age but that they took pains not to be seen. @@LordEriolTolkien
The interesting thing is that talking did not invent this thought. The notion in Ireland has existed God knows how long 42 warring factions agreed to split reality, the one taking the upper Earth the one descending into the earth. And it is there that they can exist in teeny tiny forms or big forms. Also he was drawing on Greek myth where Immortal or a god diminishes to the point where they just become a whisper on the Wind. He has synthesized a huge amount of Mythology
It gets a bit murky at this point, because at one point Tolkien envisaged the elves (and Tol Eressea) retuning for a final battle, in an event called the Faring Forth. Unfortunately the elves had set forth before the fated day, and they were soundly defeated, with the island being overrun and becoming mortal lands - the British Isles.
@@davidandrews2972 Agreed - in the beginning he was just trying to write a "Faery Tale" for the British Isles. Tolkien Gateway references this with the tale of Ælfwine who washes up on Tol Eressëa and the elf Pengolodh tells him the history of what is essentially the Silmarillion before it was completely fleshed out.
I am sure some stayed. Tolkien told us --- in typically uncertain terms --- that there could have been a small settlement on the south side of the White Mountains, and there were some stragglers who wandered through the Shire, as Frodo and company met. We really don't know how long they remained, though they apparently intended to leave eventually. And I believe the reason why Legolas built a ship in Ithilien was because that was considerably less trouble than undertaking a long journey from there to the Grey Havens.
Many elves didn't even know if valinor was real, it's very mythical even to them. And for other clans it's distant and to some it's a little taboo for lack of better term. Some don't even know where to find it. Watch GirlNextGondor chat with CluelessFangirl and check all there videos as well as The Red Book and Tolkien Untangled.
@@Makkaru112 Legolas. He'd rather build s ship himself from scratch that walk through the Shire. Can't blame him. "Oo yes Mister Frodo, no Mister Frodo, can I lick your boots Mister Frodo.". Seriously, haven't you ever wanted to punch Samwise the Groveller?
iirc there was a passage in the Silmarillion that said not all the elves left Middle Earth, but the ones who chose to remain were destined to lose their grace and become "a rustic folk of dell and cave..." I always found that poetic and sad.
It has a lot more meaning to this. Tolkien stated in detail why they were meant to remain in middle earth. All of them. They were only brought to Valinor because of Morgoth threatening these new children of Eru Îlluvatar long before Oromë even found them to begin with which is why for a short time they thought he was Morgoth but quickly found that Oromë was. Wholesome pure being ❤
The fading of the Elves was Tolkien's entire reason for writing about them. If they all left for Valinor, his tales would not result in the modern day remnants of faerie, fairy stories, and fairy folklore.
And this would tie in to the legends of the Real World, things like the Huldufólk (the Hidden People) or elves of Icelandic lore, pixies, faeries and so on who are no longer the mightly Noldor, Sindarin or even Avari. Tolkien intended for his legendarium to be about an alternative history of our own world, hence magic had to fade away before our times.
What I'd like to know is what happened to all the spirits trapped in the Dead Marshes? Were they eventually freed like the spirits of the dead under the mountain, or were they sufferred to exist as ghosts lighting little candles until the breaking of the world?
This is a fantastic suggestion for a video! I actually have a very strong opinion on this that I can back up with textual evidence, so I'm going to make this video next. Thanks for the contribution!
The part about the dead marshes includes Legolas’s Father; Thranduil, & Thranduil’s father Oropher, were to join the Last Alliance in from a different angle to achieve a certain war tactic but Oropher and others got waylayed by orcs & many corrupted men which lead to eventually Oropher dying there, this loss effected Legolas’s father so very deeply forevermore. The bond between he and his son is the same bond Thranduil has with Legolas. And the braid he wears is to honour his grandfather. I believe after his death braids became less common. A sort of respect thing I believe. Both his father and Grandfather lived in Doriath(Elu Thingol’s domain[Elwë], which was heartbea of middle earth; Aside from Gondolin which held this mantle until it’s secret location was given up by a tortured elf who was the son of a very important mother who was the sister of the high king Turgon). All on a landmass called Beleriand that sunk under the sea after a set of disastrous events that lead to many greater outcomes much later on in the legendarium. This here is a whole set of stories of which also includes a quite a bit of Galadriel too but moreso other characters during this era. Of Beren And Lùthien comes to mind and Children Of Hurin!! You’ll fall in love even more after the third movie. Then you can enter into the lore videos like Moviejoob and OmarioRPG have done reaction videos too. Amazing stuff. One thing to add though is this scene resembles a lot from the other battle Tolkien was involved in called The Battle Of Somme. Look into it and tell me your thoughts. I’ll add something here though: that clan of elves really didn’t like being under the command of anyone else so they went ahead without the order and let’s just say it didn’t end well. That and they weren’t fond of the Ñoldor… huge history there as to why that is. That and the Sindar subgroup of these clans were a tiny bit more isolationist. But there are many amazing Sindar in the legendarium too Elrond and his two sons and daughter are connected to all of the main clans of men and elves through the union of his half elf father and full elf(quarter goddess) mother. Who essentially played a huge role in saving the world from the original dark lord Morgoth. Gained the Favour Of Valinor. Which subsequently lead to Numenor being a gift from the sea to the men who helped. Becoming blessed. Their land existing within the light of Valinor as it was situated closely to The Undying Lands. (The same ancestry Aragorn has that Èowyn spoke of while they were travelling to Helm’s Deep! (Elrond’s Twin Brother became the first king of Númenor. His name becoming Tar-Minyatur, and those faithful to Eru, the elves and the natural world all of this line carried Tar before their name! Ar for Aragorn is the word meaning Noble in his tongue called Adúnaic. That too is a fleshed out language Tolkien created too. Elvish languages also were placed into the official list of world languages too!
My understanding is that these apparitions were phantom illusions placed there by Sauron in an effort to force all who approach Mordor from the north or West down the three main roads.
(Just a theory) I don't think that the spirits that inhabited the drowned bodies of the Elven soldiers belonged to them. These were likely malevolent entities drawn there by Sauron's taint and influence to provide yet another layer of defense to the entrance to Mordor. Recall that when the Hobbits become trapped in the Barrow-downs, it is explained that the Wights are evil spirits of the men of Angmar, sent there by the Witch-king in times past to haunt the Barrows and animate the bones of the old kings of Cardolan. So, it was not the spirits of the Dunedain that were there. Similarly, when the Last Alliance Elves perished on the plain of Dagorlad, their immortal essence passed to the Halls of Mandos, but evil spirits took over their decomposing remains afterwards.
Great video! I always felt that a few of the Elves remained. Reading the appendices many times over it always seemed that Tolkien meant to convey that some stayed in Middle Earth feeling, as you state, the need to heal what they could of the lands after millennia of destruction.
Considering LotR is supposedly the pre-history of our Earth, it would fit with there still being a few elves left, who give rise to our fairy tales (along with Tom Bombadil).
I'm late to the show, sadly. I was distracted by some Elven friends in whose compa'ny time passes... well, oddly. So I can confirm, they're are still here. And they're pretty nice guys.
I sometimes tell my children stories of Arda, as if they were indeed ages long lost to time. So it is that I also tell them that elves do exist, though just not visible to us anymore. My daughter especially loves that :)
Well Tolkien was both a historian and a linguist which is why his mythology is so well constructed it easily reflects ancient pre deluge history and civilization or the time before time as some call it. It's only now that we are finding remnants of that mysterious time period like Göbekli Tepe or the fact that we shared this planet with other hominids including Homo Floreciensis or nicknamed Hobbits because their appearance is identical downright to the larger than usual feet. In short the insight Tolkien had is nothing short of amazing. So much so I believe that Matusalen and Noah might as well had been the last Numeroan descendants of Adam and Eve.
I think that was how Tolkien thought of it -- that the faded elves were the ones that people sometimes got glimpses of out of the corner of their eye while walking in the woods.
There were likely thousands of elves still in Middle Earth for much or most of the 4th age. But they would always have the power and choice to just build a ship and sail West. They don't have to have Cirdan. just to build a ship.
No they don't. Tolkien said that the Avari cannot leave. When they rejected the original invitation the choice was irrevocable. Only the Eldar can leave.
@@Makkaru112 Where is that video, and who is the user that posted it? I'm not able to find that, but I did find something called "the 7th age of Middle-Earth"
I’m sure Cirdan(Nelwë/Nowë) was one of the elves that succeeded in the original design of the elves. To remain and guide & teach/mentor mankind until they shift further into the “unseen realm”, and he may yet still have physical form to this day. And as it’s stated in the books: for those who are willing to seek them out and have the hearts and sensibilities to hear AND listen to them that man will have gained something oh so priceless.
@@nerdytom6881 his foresight was as great as his understanding of various things within Arda which not all knew half as much as he did to the degree that he did. But yeah then the rest who DONT go to Valinor will follow suit as designed from Tolkiens own words. They were meant to stay in their ancestral homelands within Middle Earth. ❤️
@@persebra Legolas crafted a ship with Gimli from an ancient ent of white bark who essentially was at the end of his own life in a sense and happily allowed them to use his body to make a ship where they went to Tol Eressea and Valinor together.
People forget that the elves are immortal. Their bodies can be slain but that would just vault their souls into the halls of Mandos (uncertain on spelling), which is in the undying lands. So even after they diminished their souls would travel to the undying lands as, unlike men, they were tied to the world itself.
Celeborn left lothlorien long before Arwen arrived. He went to Imladris to live with Elladan and Elrohir. Yet also in either the story of arwen and aragorn or some other place its said "none now walk in the gardens of Elrond" so they would have left Imladris at that time.
Great video, I am fascinated with this subject and have spent quite a-lot of time reading about it and come to the same conclusion as you do here. Firstly and importantly all children of the union of a half elf and human are half elves, they have the choice to become mortal or remain an immortal elf and all that comes with that including the right to travel to Valinor. Arwen was a Half Elven as her father Elrond was a Half Elf who had chosen to be an Elf his brother Elros had chosen mortality and was the first king of Numenor. Even if the Half Elf parent has chosen mortality his or her children are born with the choice that is awarded to all Half Elves and all their descendants. So all of Arwen and Aragorns children will be Half Elven and we know they had three daughters and one son, so four half elves are living in the fourth age and if they choose as Elrond did they will be immortal and can go to Valinor, we have no imformation on this though. Also this applies to all the children of these four and their children and on. So technically we can be confident in saying there will certainly be Elves in Middle Earth who can go to Valinor as long as the line of Arwen and Aragorn continues. Many would have stayed, the 'Moriquendi' was a term used by the Elves to describe those who had never seen the light of Valinor, ie never been there. This included the Sindar and Nandor these groups were huge races of the Elves not just a few, they did not feel the pull of the sea in the way Elves from other groups did. To them Valinor wasn’t something that particularly concerned them, it was not part of their history and culture unlike Galadriel, Celeborn and Elrond all they know is one time thousands of years ago some dude said you can come to Valinor and they said no thanks we’re good here and anyway who are you telling is where we can and can’t live? For example the wood Elves ruled by Thranduil were Sindar although Thranduil himself was Sindarin. We know that in the fourth age Thranduil and Celeborn cleansed Mirkwood of evil, returning it to Greenwood and they lived peacefully for many years. We know Celeborn went to Valinor and Lothlorien was empty when Arwen went there on Aragorns death but know nothing of Thranduils people. Legolas eventually did sail to Valinor with Gimli and Tolkien heavily hints Sam did too after Rosie died. So 'The Last Ship' isn't literal, but refers to the last ship taking the specific group of Elves with important leaders and characters at the end of the 3rd age. There was no restriction on any Elf building a ship and going to Valinor at any time so we can be sure Elves stayed in Middle Earth for many thousands of years. The only reasons Elves left for Valinor is they felt a strong pull to do so, they got sad and depressed from the continual cycle of birth and death in ME and could die from sadness (and then they go to the Halls of Mandos and eventually end up back in Valinor) or they fade. This means there bodies finally were almost burnt out by their spirits or 'Thea' if the didn't return to Valinor but this takes many, many years - we're talking thousands. Cirdan was between eight and ten thousand years old, we also know a Valian year is about 10 solar or human years, so we're talking a long long time. The One Ring enabled Galadriels, Elronds and Gandalfs ring to much lessen the sadness Elves could experience in ME, particularly Galdriels - it enabled her to make wherever she lived, ie Loth Lorien much like Valinor. So this power was removed when the one ring was destroyed, so that was a big reason many elves left at this time. But again the Wood Elves etc never lived under the power of any rings of power, they had no experience of life like this or life in Valinor. Basically we can be sure Elves continued to live in Middle Earth for thousands more years but steadily declining in numbers. Some would have sailed away to Valinor, those who did not get depressed or feel a pull would live for thousands of years until they faded. So there could still be pockets of Elves living secretly on Earth today, and some faded Elves too. But we can certainly be sure Elves were still around throughout the Fourth Age, and ages following that right up to today just in smaller and smaller numbers - but this was gradual particularly in the eyes of men whose lives were a blink of an eyes compared to Elves. Also the whole entire point of the existence of Elves as designed by Eru Ilivatar (the god in Tolkiens mythology of ME) was to make ME ready for Men to take over and live in - we clearly need help today in doing that as weve managed to make a complete mess of it!
Perhaps Legolas built his own ship knowing that Gimli was to accompany him on the journey. Maybe the other elves wouldn’t have wanted a dwarf, even an elf-friend of Gimli’s renown, traveling to Elvenhome. So rather than talking about it with others, he took the decision onto himself.
It was in the books that an ollllld white wood ent relinquished his Fëa spirit and let his wolf he used as a gesture to make a ship where Gimli joined in drafting it and went to Tol Eresea with with Legolas(Laiqolassë)
Or he might not have dared to subject his friend to the long and still rather arduous journey over land to Lindon. Gimli was quite old even by dwarf-standards by that time, and just sailing down Anduin was the easier way.
I imagine most of the HIgh and Grey Elves left, but surely a contingent of Silvan Elves who never made it past the Misty Mountains and settled all along the Anduin stayed. Plus Avari who never even made it to the MM and stayed in the East, if there were any left, and were probably already well into their ultimate fate.
The Avari in great number with the Sindar still remain as they were always meant to. To guide and mentor humanity so they could better handle their two pronged gift of Man. dominion over the physical realm while the elves shift deeper into the unseen realm.
Great video! I think though that you might have missed Arwen's reply to Aragorn when he stated the choices left to her after he would pass away: - "Nay dear lord," she said, "that choice is long over. There is now no ship that would bear me hence, and I must indeed abide the Doom of Men, whether I will or I nill: the loss and the silence. But I say to you, King of the NUmenoreans, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scored them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Eldar Say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive." To me that indicates that Arwen believed that there was no actual prospect of her going to the Undying Lands now - perhaps Cirdan and the last of his kin had left by then. Any elves that might have remained were probably mostly from the Avari, who refused the initial summons. Legolas' group who settled Ithilien would have been largely Avari, since that was the population of his father's people in the Greenwood, a part of whom he took to Ithilien. I suspect these were among the very last elves in Middle Earth. There's also the unknown fate of Maglor, who threw his Silmaril into the sea when he could not hold it, and lingered by the shore for who knows how long? In the book, it stated he may have cast himself into the sea eventually, but he may not have done. But I think probably he would perish through weariness, a broken heart or a quenching of his spirit, much as his grandmother did on giving birth to his father.
Arwen was no longer 'legally' an elf. It implies that she did not age, but after Elessar died went to Lothlorien and lay down and died. Elves were capable of this, and it was a last defence against sorrow or torment. However she did not appear in the Halls of Mandros where dead elves go, but was entitled to the unknown benefits of the afterlife Eru provided. This is the closest hint we have to what the Gift of Man is. Elves are immortal and do not sicken, but an elf who dies goes to a afterlife crafted by an archangel, Men are mortal and doomed to die, but dead men go to an afterlife crafted by God.
There is an interesting line about Arwen's "green grave" so you wonder who buried her. My thought is that she went back to Lothlorien though it was abandoned because it was there that she met Aragorn and they "plighted their troth" Cirdan, by the way, was waiting to take the last of those who would go.
@@bdleo300 She gave that up. It was a trade off between leaving or having Aragorn. She coudln't have it both ways. Another reason is that elves aren't really sure what happens to mortal souls after they die but they are jealous of the process. That's why they called it the "gift of men". I think they suspected they "went to a better place."
The Avari in great number with the Sindar still remain as they were always meant to. To guide and mentor humanity so they could better handle their two pronged gift of Man. dominion over the physical realm while the elves shift deeper into the unseen realm.
@@persebraNo some Elves when they were discovered by Melkor in the Valian years were taken and twisted into Orcs. That was not the fate of the vast majority of Elves, including the Avari.
As far as I have been able to tell, Arwen chose to be human - admittedly, High Man, similar to a Numenorean - when she married Aragorn. Her living another 120 years is due to the long life of High Men (from the grace of the Valar), and her dying 'of grief' is also in line with how Numenoreans aged and died - not really from old age, but because they were tired of living. Arwen had no reason to live longer at that point; her love was dead, her son grown and busy ruling Gondor, and none of her kin left in Middle-Earth to talk to... so she laid herself down and surrendered her life after wandering through lands of happy memory for a year. Thus she passed beyond the realm of Arda until the Dagor Dagorath.
She had the choice to make when Elrond left Middle Earth, to depart with him or remain and become mortal. At their parting she said to Aragorn 'There is no ship that will now take me'. I gather that to be since she chose to stay and be mortal, she couldn't rescind that 'choice'. Also in Tolkiens story, that he says 'Those Elves who stay, will fade and become shadows of the past'. This could mean they become in 'time' legend and folklore as the 4th and any subseqeunt age advances.
@@neil999ish yes and no. Elves mate for life so when she betrothed to Aragorn when he was 17, ontop of her giving a particular gift to Frodo after talking with him for a long time in the Garden Of Kings where she hoped he could go to Valinor or Tol Eressea in his stead. Galadriel did the same on two different simultaneously occasions as well which solidified him a spot to sail west with or without his successful self sacrificing deeds to help free Sauron from his long grip upon Middle Earth.
I believe that Arwen’s choice only started to take effect unto her when Aragorn died and all that she has gained has been lost and just like any other elf she gave up her life willingly upon the green hill in Lothlorien.
(Elves near extinction) Why the elves couldn’t help as much as some may have wished at the final battle of we Helms Deep & other places: By the Third Age of Middle-earth, the population of Elves had significantly decreased from their numbers in the earlier Ages. It is estimated that there were only a few thousand Elves remaining in Middle-earth by this time. One reason why Elves didn't have much military prowess to help out more in the Third Age is because they had already fought many battles in the previous Ages, & were weary of war ontop of Lothlòrien(where Galadriel is) being constantly attacked throughout this current story during the trilogy story but the movies never show it. Additionally, many of the great Elven kingdoms had already fallen, & the remaining Elves had scattered across Middle-earth, making it difficult to organize a large-scale military force. Furthermore, Elves had a deep respect for the natural world, and were hesitant to engage in battles that could harm the environment. They preferred to use their skills in magic and healing to assist in battles, rather than fighting directly. Despite their reduced numbers and military prowess, Elves still played an important role in the events of the Third Age. They were instrumental in the quest to destroy the One Ring, and many fought bravely in battles against Sauron's forces. However, they had to be strategic about their involvement, as they knew that they could not sustain heavy losses without risking the extinction of their entire race. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ In J.R.R. Tolkien's works, the exact population of Elves in Middle-earth during the Third Age is not explicitly stated. However, it is generally believed that their numbers had greatly diminished by this time, with only a few remaining Elven kingdoms & settlements scattered across Middle-earth. Some sources estimate that there may have been only a few thousand Elves left in Middle-earth by the Third Age. It is important to note that the exact population of Elves in Middle-earth is not a major focus of Tolkien's works, as he was more concerned with the individual characters & their journeys rather than the demographics of Middle-earth. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ While there are no exact figures given in Tolkien's works, some fans have attempted to estimate the population of Elves in Middle-earth during the Third Age using various mathematical models comparing to what was known about the past. One such estimate, based on the size of Elven settlements & their likely populations, suggests that there may have been around 100,000 Elves scattered across Middle-earth from different clans as it were with slightly different diverging history at certain points during the Third Age. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ The population of Elves in Middle-earth changed over time due to a variety of factors, including wars, migrations, & natural disasters. During the First Age, Elves were relatively numerous and lived in many different kingdoms & settlements across Middle-earth. However, many of these kingdoms were destroyed during the wars against Morgoth, the first Dark Lord. During the Second Age, the population of Elves began to decline as many Elves left Middle-earth to sail to the Undying Lands, a paradise-like realm across the sea. This was largely due to the influence of the Valar, the angelic beings who created the world, who offered the Elves a chance to escape the sorrows and limitations of mortal life in Middle-earth. By the time of the Third Age, the population of Elves in Middle-earth had greatly diminished. Many of the great Elven kingdoms had fallen, & the remaining Elves had scattered across Middle-earth in small, isolated settlements. This was partly due to the wars of the First Age and the destruction of many Elven kingdoms, as well as the gradual decline of the Elves' power & influence in Middle-earth. Overall, the population of Elves in Middle-earth declined over time, with many Elves leaving for the Undying Lands & many others being killed in wars and other conflicts. By the end of the Third Age, the Elves' numbers had greatly diminished, & they were a shadow of their former glory in Middle-earth. It’s been their fight for ages alone before Men came along and many of them befriended Men from the very beginning. They share the same fights/The same histories etc! Let’s just say it used to be a few million so imagine what Galadriel & her husband have seen regarding experiencing their entire race that still dwelled upon middle earth nearly being wiped out into extinction…
It is entirely safe to assume that at some point during his life Aragorn visited the Havens and met Cirdan, and in any event Aragorn would have news of the events in a realm that neighbored his, if for no other reason than on account of the Elves who passed through his realms on the way there.
I’ve always imagined that Arwen at LEAST stuck around until her children passed away and become a super beloved queen of the restored kingdoms of Arnor//Gondor and the free peoples as she has the great ancestors of both Elves & Men alike, The Houses Of The Edain, The Sindar elves, Ñoldor Elves, Vanyar Elves & so on! This is also why I feel we’ve grown over the years to have many different hair colours like them. Gold Vanyar, White Sindar, Brown/Black hair for Ñoldor, and whichever clan had red hair too etc.
@@TRivan-kx2biI haven’t read Tolkien in forever, but is there any mention of Arwen and Aragorn’s son in the Tolkien Appendices that we get a glimpse of in the ROTK film and what happened between her and her son after Aragorn passed on?
@@cha5 Eldarion, son of Aragorn, is mentioned in the appendices. As for what happened between him and Arwen, all it says is that she said good bye to him and his sisters after Aragon's death. Arwen then went to Lorien and died there.
At the end of the day, none of it matters. But it's fun speculating on things like whether some elves stayed behind in middle earth. I'm enjoying these videos. Please keep them coming.
I always thought that Arwen wandering the forests of Lorien in despair after Aragorn’s death was a weird choice. Wouldn’t it give her purpose to be with her children, grandchildren, etc? After hundreds of years, how valuable would it be for each king to have a great-great(etc) grandmother with so much wisdom & memory involved in their life and rule? If I had the choice to be a kind of mentor to my entire family line and help ensure they were successful, I’d take that in a heartbeat.
You should read the letters of JRR Tolkien. He added a lot of clarifications which are not in the histories or the completed works. He said very clearly in one of his letters that the Avari do not leave, and cannot leave. When they refused the initial summons from the Valar the choice was irrevocable. I assume the choice also applied to their children. Only Eldar can leave, but Eldar includes those who set out to leave but changed their minds. Legolas can leave because he's an Eldar, even though he never stepped foot in Valinor. Most of the Mirkwood elves are Avari, but they have an Eldar ruling class. Thranduil can leave if he wants but there's nothing in the lore to indicate that he ever does. My guess is he has something to do with the Wild Hunt in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle. To understand where Tolkien was going you have to also look at his sources of inspiration.
I'm missing any discussion regarding the Elves of the east. Not much is known about those groups of Elves but they did exist. In the eastern regions beyond Dale and near the realm of Dorwinion. These Elves were not mentioned in the story of the Lord of the Rings but just as the Easterlings or Haradrim who were only mentioned as being part of the great host that besieged Gondor, they did very much exist. There is no indication that any of them chose to sail westwards, in fact many of them never even saw Valinor at all. So these Elves most definitely(well as definitely as it gets considering the very limited lore we have on them) remained in middle earth.
The video is great in many aspects, so thanks and congratulations :) Still, some Elves remained in Middle-earth (our world according to Tolkien) in later ages. But they lost their ancient greatness.
@williampo8304 You might be quite right. In some ways, Rivendell was maybe inspired by Papal Rome: a place powerful not with armies but with knowledge, ruled by a lord of vast connections and influence over kings, the place of an influential Council.
I don’t think Aragorn fully understood the doom of Arwen, and her brothers, that they had to leave with Elrond or accept the doom of men. That was cast at the end of the first age and start of the second, when the half eleven, (and part Maia), Elrond and Elros, had to chose humanity or eleven kind . I personally suspect the departure of the last of the Elves marked the end of the fourth age, along with the final disappearance of other thinking and speaking creatures like the Ents and Dwarves, leaving only humans, by which point, over many centuries, the descendants of Arwen and Aragon had multiplied and spread, until it was impossible for the line of Luthien and Beren to be destroyed, without it being an end of human kind too.
The movies I think changed the lore a bit to say that Arwen and her brothers *had to leave with him* (or before him) or they would die. That isn't however how JRRT framed it in the books. It was Arwen's choice to cleave herself to a mortal that doomed her to die, not whether she accompanied her father. Therefore, her brothers could have escaped her fate if they had left at some point after Elrond had already gone. My personal view - not backed up by anything JRRT wrote, i.e. my "headcanon" - is that they stayed to make sure their sister was OK and remained until after she passed away. At some point after that (they may or may not have stayed a bit longer to make sure Eldarion's rule started out well, being his only uncles), I feel they would have sailed over to Sea, not least to meet with their mother again, whom they lost centuries before to orcs and who would have probably have been reincarnated by then. I think Aragorn would have known the consequences - after all, he grew up in the same way as an Elvish lord would in Elrond's house. His own distant family history of Beren and Luthien was an instructive tale which he clearly knew of.
@@Torstenn-b3x I share your view on why they stayed but think in the books it said they had to leave with Elrond., I will have to check. I suspect Celeborn may also have stayed (at least in part) for a similar reason.
I believe the first born who remained in Middle Earth existed for some time, likely deep into the 4th age. Many would have experienced heartbreak, some reduced to near/madness and reduced in wisdom and heartiness. Yes, some would have built ships and sailed West. Others, I believe, passed to the Halls of Mandos as I believe did Arwen. Perhaps the firstborn who remained behind devolved into what our cultural stories became "cryptids," such as Leprechauns.
Arwen, like her foremother Lúthien, chose mortality when they married their respective husbands, Aragorn and Beren. It is said that once the Choice is made, it can never be reversed. Both Arwen and Lúthien when they died, they went where the Secondborn were sent and only Illuvatar knew where. The Secondborn return for the Dagor Dagorath. Moments before Aragorn died, he asked Arwen to take a ship and sail West. She responded that there would be no ship to take her. Tolkien however has stated that Maglor never sailed West.
02:15 I always interpreted this exchange as noting no ship would/could carry ARWEN, because her choice is irrevocable. She is counted among Men, now. Forever. 02:47 the Appendices say Celeborn left for Rivendell. 08:03 there is also a strong hint that the Elves should have remained in Arda, rather than relocate to Valinor. Such had been Eru's original plan. 10:24 Do not forget that as each Elven body dies, each Elven spirit is called to the Halls of Mandos.
An interesting take, but I think it's incomplete in that it leaves out many of JRRT's writings from the History of Middle-Earth. There are intriguing "philosophical" writings on the nature of Elves. While never part of the works published in his lifetime, they do constitute the reams of thoughts going through his mind in the near 20 years of his life after publication of the LotR. Of especial note here is the "fact" that in mortal lands, sooner or later their Fëar (their spirit or soul) would burn out their physical bodies, leaving behind an insubstantial existence. Tolkien's way of segueing to the Fey, Sidhe, Fairies of later human stories, I can only presume. There is also, in the back of my mind - and I've been trying to find the quote again in the thousands of pages of HoME - something about Avari losing the right to go West! There was a cut-off, it seems, a veritable "you snooze, you lose"! How that would work when, while still corporeal, they could at worst physically end their lives and find themselves in the Halls of Mandos and thence be reborn? No idea! Perhaps it ended very sadly: losing their bodies, becoming pure Fëa, they could no longer physically die and so never even leave Middle-Earth. There was something about that turning them malicious and bitter, again linking to modern folk tales of the Unseelie? As for the short Last Ship: if we want to be nit-picky, Celeborn and Cirdan were not kings and were never referred to as such. So, who the 3 Elven kings were remains speculative. My reading of the brief story was always that it was focused on the fate of the mortal human stuck to remain rather than the literal "who" on that ship. How long did the Elven settlement in Ithilien last? That may be tied to how long the Elessarian Renaissance of the re-united Kingdom lasted: while agonisingly brief, we do get the impression that, unsurprisingly going by JRRT's Weltanschauung, a new shadow arrived far too soon, in the lifetime of Elessar's son or grand-son. As is typical of humans. In the blink of an eye for Elves. They may have carried on a bit longer after Legolas, but if Gondorian kids started playing at being Orcs and some new cult arising, they would have gone back to be beings of suspicion and fear. Legolas building his own boat and leaving from Belfalas may have just been convenience (or because Gimli was too old for a journey through Eregion) and continuing a tradition going back to Amroth's days. Fun speculation, though I've tried to stick to "I bloody *know* I read that, but it's all a jumble from the info overload that is HoME".
Círdan is equally as old as Ingwë, Finwë, Elwë(Elu Thingol), Olwë, Nelwë, Now(which that or Nelwë was Círdan’s true name), 30,000. The elves third cycle as it’s called.
They all are a few generations down from Tata&Tatyë, Imin&Iminyë, Enel&Enelyë, the other part of the story is those ambassadors towards Valinor that lead the hosts on the gravest journey across the entire continent of Middle Earth were literally one of the sons from each of those three pairs of OG elves that I just mentioned. And Gold hair means it’d be a Vanyar Elf and they are very special and rare.
@@Makkaru112Speaking of them I have always wondered what happened to the first Three fathers and Mothers of the Elves. They rejected the summons to Valinor. Maybe they traveled further east at some point.
Whatever the reason or which elf clan they belong to, as stated in the prophecy of Mandos, the elves who choose to stay in Middle-earth are doomed to fade away faster than the rest of the Arda Marred.
Nice video, It's a sa d thought that all Elves departed although the offspring of the elf/man unions remained but this sadness runs through all Tolkien's tales concerning Middle Earth. One small criticism and it is a very small one, Cirdan ought to be pronounced with the letter R trilled. This isn't normal for an Englishman I know but Tolkien would have liked it that way. If you listen to interviews with him he nearly always did that.
Hah! I had a yellow cat named Rumil, and I always called him with that trill at the beginning, like a mother cat calling her kitten. Tolkien, of course, did not like cats.
Ive always imagined that Arwen waits until her son is well settled onto the throne and then leaves. Ive also imagined that Legolas and Gimli waited until after Aragorns death to pass into the west
Also gotta ask what “percent” of elven blood did Prince Imrahel have? I have been thinking about this for a long time. Since there are only 3 recognized unions of high elves and mankind, where did this other population come from?
I think the three elven lords in the poem did not include Thranduil, because i cant picture him giving up his kingdom in his pride. But cant imagine who else it may be. Glorfindel, maybe? I dont think JRRt specified when he returned.
@@thomasplinguidy4588Not if they were Avarri, or even descendents of the Eluwaith and Greenelves. Why would they want to go? Heaven can be boring, while the real world holds challenges.
Gimli might have been the reason that Legolas set sail when he did. After all, Legolas had no especial need to go then, being immortal and able to build his own ship, except for the fact that Gimli was not immortal and was old by then, and perhaps not long for the world.
Nowadays one cannot trust anything digital being free from AI anymore. But if this is your real voice, it it beautiful and I could listen to it night and day.
I like to think that many magical beings that were left slowy disappeared throughout Middle Earth after the last ship left for Valinor. These beings, including Elves, Dwarves, Fairies and Gnomes, were sometimes spotted by the Celts and other groups of people, and inspired the fairytales of Europe and England.
Mainly to be with their sister Arwen. But as my short story shows both for Elurèd & Elurín equally to Elledan & Elrohir both for various reasons to take the opposite choice of eachother. It’s hard to explain without giving the whole story away
@user-nz6dx2fj6h The books are numerous and sometimes contradictory, as Christopher Tolkien was wont to publish his father's writer's notes. I used to joke that every time he found a scrap of paper with his father's handwriting on it wrapping an old flowerpot it went into the legendarium.
@@erynlasgalen1949 As a member of the Tolkien Society I find that offensive. As a reader, I find it offensive. I pretty much find it offensive. No one is allowed to criticise Tolkeins works or his sons.
Tolkien actually detailed what happens to the few (mostly Avari) elves that stayed past the last ships leaving. Christopher Tolkien included it in the last volume of the History of Middle Earth. The elves essentially become the 'fey' of Britannic legend. Due to the nature of their spirits (their 'fea') and the passing of magic and the elder things from the world, as the age of men that began at the end of LOTR turned into 'history' as we know it. What happened is that they fade, their spirits remaining while their bodies (hroa in elvish) fade into something almost incorporeal. Becoming nearly invisible, being only occasionally encountered by men in ancient glades and deep woods, and the interaction creating an unhealthy longing for something ineffable in the hearts of those people who had passing encounters with them. The fey of Britannic legend. The Elves were *designed* to fade when it became the time of men. The three elven rings, Narya, Nenya and Vilya held off the decay for a time until their power was broken with the destruction of the one ring. From then on, the fading was irreversible.
If memory serves, all those elves that witnessed the trees in Valinor, along with their descendants, had the light of creation in them and would hear the call of the sea and leave for Valinor, while those that chose to stay in Middle Earth did not.
"The Last Ship" was, Tolkien told us, a tale of Firiel, a woman who was a long-ago ancestor of Aragorn. I have always read it as noting a change in the departure point for the Elves sailing to Valinor -- the ships to the West no longer sailed "down the seven rivers", but rather thereafter set off from the Grey Havens, under the watchful eye of Cirdan. Who the three kings were, I have no idea; although your interpretation is an interesting one. Perhaps the poem is one that blends history with prediction? The fact remains that the poem was ancient before the Ring was destroyed.
For the Avarti that were not from Doriath or under Thrandil (since he was a Grey Elf)- who knew very little or nothing of the Undying lands, many may have stayed in Middle Earth - they were already 'diminished'' especially if you are talking about a comparison to Galadriel and other Noldor.
@@tonyf8167 "the title would have been a VERY important designation." not from a poet's standpoint. remember the main poem rings for 3 Elvin kings. etc... None of the holders were "kings", were they?
Solid presentation, I liked your video. However it has a few small errors which compound as you analyse and come to your conclusions. 1. There is no singular 'Last Ship' except by happenstance. Any ship built to make the one way journey to Valinor is called a Last Ship. The finality is based on the nature of the journey, not the order of departure. There logically would indeed be a last-to-depart Last Ship, probably crewed by 'rustic elves' in a latter age. It's import might not even be remarked upon in Valionr at its arrival if other elves yet lingered and never made the journey, 2. Elves do not have any urge to remain in Middle Earth per se, they have instead a lack of urge to depart for Valinor, cultivated by living deep inland in isolated and semi-wild places. The urge is triggered by proximity to the sea. Whether the western ocean triggers this or any sea is uncertain. When Galadriel sent tidings to the Fellowship she included a warning to Legolas to avoid the shores, or the sound of gulls. Legolas had to risk this by following Aragorn to confront the Corsairs. Since that time he was doomed to leave Middle Earth, but remained while Ellesar was alive. It is likely that Gimli also grounded him enough to dampen the call. For the record the grey ship Legolas made which he used to Gimli to travel to Valinor is a Last Ship. 3. Cirdan left with Galadriel, Elrond and Gandalf as ring bearers of the three Elven Rings. So his departure was early in King Elessar's reign. This Last Ship was the Ringbearers ship and was an important portent. It should be noted that Cirdan dwelt in the Grey Havens for many millenia. How did he achieve this? By building the Last Ship he was to depart on slowly over the course of centuries. He worked on it to keep the hunger of departure at bay and keep his peace, yet tarried so he could remain in Middle Earth. So. Cirdan, a ringbearer, did not depart with Thranduil. The Last Ship poem most likely refers to the Ringbearers Last Ship. Perhaps the most important of its kind due to its significance in Valinor and to us as it is the ship Merry and Pippin saw depart. The three crowned heads are Cirdan, Elrond and Galadriel. However this is conjecture and it is possible that it refers to another Last Ship carrying royalty. Perhaps Thranduil's ship, perhaps an earlier ship built when the exile of the Noldor ended after the war of Wrath.
I agree with your conclusion: that after the departure of Celeborn, Thranduil, Cirdan, and Legolas, in FA 120, it seems likely that several thousand Silvan elves remained in Ithilien, Lindon, the Falas, and in Thranduil's lands in northern Mirkwood. Another aspect of Middle Earth that we have no knowledge of, is the overall distribution of Elven-kind in the first centuries after their awakening at Cuiviénen. This place was in the far east, on the inland Sea of Helcar, and who's to say that all of the Avari migrated westward toward Eriador and Beleriand? Might some groups of Avari headed south, and ended up in Far Harad, or further East, along the east coast of the continent, far, far beyond the limits of any maps held in Gondor, Numenor, or Imladris? As mentioned in other sources, Allatar and Pallando never returned to report on their journeys into the far east and south, and who can say what they might have discovered about the people they met? Tolkien limited his stories to the areas mapped in LOTR and The Silmarillion, and after the War of Wrath, much of the world was radically altered - the maps in The Silmarillion no longer applied (Beleriand was mostly inundated), and after the Akallabeth, the world was not even flat - it was now a sphere and the Undying Lands were completely removed to a different plane of existance. Tolkien made it clear in his later writings that "the world" is "our" world, which implies that The Shire, Gondor, Rohan, Rhovanion, and Rhun are all on the Eurasian continent. Far Harad is probably Africa, and somewhere far to the west of the Grey Havens, lie the lands that would one day be known as the Americas, while seven thousand miles to the east of The Shire, one would come to the western coast of the Pacific Ocean in China and the Russian Far East. Could it be that groups of the Avari ended up there, completely beyond the scope of even the furthest known travels of anyone we know of from LOTR and The Silmarillion, except possibly Alatar and Pallando (and Ulmo, of course, the Lord of all waters in Arda). Could there have been Elves in the America's, blown there by storms in ships sailing from Middle Earth after the Akallabeth? Tolkien never expanded his writing to explore such possibilities, but he did state in his letters that Middle Earth is on "our" planet Earth, just very far removed from us in the remote past. So it's not impossible that "in-universe", Elves could have migrated to all of the Eurasian landmass, Africa, and possibly the Americas. Those Elves would likely have been completely unaware of the War of the Ring and the downfall of Sauron, and simply gone on about their lives. And who's to deny the possibility that some of the Entwives might still survive in some forest in the Far East; I'd like to think so. Tolkien never specifies "how many" ships per year Cirdan was building, or "how many" individual elves were departing during the last years of the third age and the first century of the fourth. But I have read somewhere that when Cirdan built the Last Ship, he was aware, either through his own senses, or perhaps as a intuition granted him by the Valar, that all of the elves who wished to move to the Undying Lands would be aboard when the time came for departure, and that he would not need to worry that he would leave anyone behind.
A very interesting video - thank you. The fires have called and I have answered. ;) But there is a question lingering in my mind, given all those uncertainties in Tolkiens work. Would it be feasible and 'wise'/acceptable to continue his work and expand the world of Middle-Earth with new stories, myths and histories? Not in the form of fan fiction, but in a way that these works would be considered as part of the canon?
Not all elves used the Grey Havens to travel to the undying lands. The elves of the Rhovanion side for the most part used ports located in Gondor to travel to Valinor. I must recall the Amroth and Nimrodel tale and how Mithrellas the elf ended with Imrazor the Númenórean. They intended to go to Valinor.
Indeed, It was never written anywhere in the lore what was the final word on Elves all removing west. I have always read into it that some stayed and faded in accordance of their own desires.
Wasn't the straight road reserved only for the Elves that saw the light of the trees, including the Sindar? But the Green elves and the refusers never settled in Beleriand, and thus never saw the light, even in the twilight. This would mean, that while the road is open to them, they would never feel the call. Nor long for something they never had to begin with. This would translate to these elves eventually becoming the fey spirits of old, that Tolkien associated with tree and bush, spring and lake. And they eventually faded into oblivion, becoming more spirits and memories then actual living matter.
Hmm, perhaps. Though take Legolas for instance. Though largely Sindarin, he would not have seen the Light of the Trees himself as he was born in Middle Earth. His ancestors were probably from the group who stayed in Middle Earth to look for Elwe (Thingol) when he vanished on meeting Melian, so they never crossed the sea in the first place either. And yet, we know that Legolas went over the straight road (not to mention Frodo, Bilbo and it said Gimli who weren't even Elves) Cirdan is also another from Elwe's group who never crossed over the sea, until he eventually (probably) did.
@@Torstenn-b3x good points all, though by seeing the light here (as mentioned above) i also included those who saw the light from Beleriand as well, as the light from the trees could be spotted as a distant shimmer in the west, at least for those of elven senses. Aside from that, the call of the west was extended not only to those that saw the trees themselves but to their descendants as well, like Elrond for example, who wasn't even a full bloodied elf, and to his children as well, which make them 2 generations removed from the original "Valinorians". Alternatively, there is a possibility that the call was felt not by those that made the journey, as in completed it, but those who undertook it, even though they never finished it. This would mean that all but the Avari felt it. And by extension this means literally ALL the elves we come in contact with through SImarillion, The Hobbit and LOTR. But then again, the invitation by the Powers was never really extended to them after the War of Wrath. At least not as far as i can remember.
Hmm . . . What of Eol, who most certainly lived in Beleriand? He seems to have been one of the Lindi, if not actually Avarren. I think there were Greenelves in Beleriand.
@@erynlasgalen1949 in the land of Ossiriand yes. Are we to consider them among the avari though? They went on the journey, though they did stray from the path among the first. As for Eol himself, while one of the few elves explicitly labeled as "dark", had he survived the end of the First Age, i like to think the Powers would extend the invitation to him as well. Though, he would probably refuse it, as he seems to want to have nothing to do with Valinorians, except maybe take some of them as wives...
@ilejovcevski79 "Seldom were tales of lust told among the Eldar . . ." I guess Eol would be a rare exception, eh? Although the maiden at first was not unwilling. Sorry, it is often hard to reconcile the various writings of Tolkien, and I don't take it as seriously as Scripture. I do recall mention of Avvari making it over the Misty Mountains, but I really can't remember where. I've been at this since 2005, and I'm not as young as I once was.
When finally the fea, the spirit, of elves that remained overcomed their hroa, the body, they lost their autonomy, and become directly subservient to the Valar. Then the Valar just whispered "Come".
Arwen's passing was not tragic. Leaving the circles of the world, being with Aragorn again? That's far less tragic than living an immortal life without him forever.
It is tragic to some. I feel sad about it because she was originally able to avoid it. But it was best for her because she loved Aragorn and should go to the Halls and be with him.
I’m not pretty deep into the lore of middle earth, but didn’t galadriel refused to sail west and later wasn’t allowed anymore to do so? I don’t know if that changed after the death of sauron, or that she died in middle earth, so could someone explain me what happened to her that she’s not one of the last elves in middle earth?
Those that refused the Valar were pardoned at the throwing down of Melkor and due to the entreaties of Earendil. She chose to remain for as long as she did, but she wasn't barred anymore from crossing over the sea.
Galadriel went West fairly soon (less than two years) after the Battle of the Shire along with Frodo, Bilbo, Elrond and Gandalf. Celeborn sticks around for a while before following her, though he moves from Lothlorien to Imladris not long after she leaves.
I never could understand why Tolkien said both that Arwen couldn't change her mind because there was no boat to take her and that Legolas made his own boat. Arwen was way older than Legolas, she would probably have the knowledge to be able to make a boat, or could find it, if she wanted to. She wouldn't have, because she'd made her choice. I just don't understand why Tolkien wrote it that way. Why not just emphasize that she stuck with her choice and did not change her mind?
Marrying Aragorn was the point at which Arwen truly lost her immortality. When he suggested that she could repent, she knew she could not do so if she wanted to.
It is part of Tolkein's mythology that some elves remained and they are still with us today, having Faded, we cannot see them unless they purposefully choose to reveal themselves to our minds.
At least one elf would definitely remain...Maglor was not allowed to return after the Oath and the Doom of Mandos. He supposedly still wanders the shores or the world lamenting what happened.
Correct. I have often thought that somebody might find Maglor and ask him whereabouts he threw the Silmaril into the sea. Maybe also offer him a recording contract for his music. I recall reading that he was accounted the second best among all the elves. :)
Imladris, home of Elrond and his sons, Elladan and Elrohir seems to have been missed. Plus Glorfindel would also be staying there beyond the departure of Elrond, then Celeborn.
I dont generally long for any fantasy to be true, but the idea of meeting the last remnants of Tolkien's elves in some peaceful forest pulls strongly at my heartstrings.
Beautiful, wouldn’t it be wonderful. Elegant beautiful tall people.
@@nancytestani1470so... the swedish are the elves!
start lucid dreaming and you'd experience the very same :)
Re the Tragedy of Arwen... She receives the Doom of Men - which is also the Gift of Men - so I would say her passing is no tragedy, though getting there may be a bitter journey given her grief. Her spirit will pass in the same way as all men - beyond the world to an unknown fate. If we think of this as Heaven - then she would perhaps be reunited with Aragorn.
They go to the halls of Mandos. All had a piece of the flame imperishable within them. Also: doom in this era didn’t always mean something bad. Just full of destiny and fate, ominous etc. and then after DagorDagorath the world is remade with the second song of the Ainur together with Men and Elves and Dwarves. They help Aulë reshape the world etc. this in full detail of the three Ardas is in GirlNextGondor’s most recent giant Nienna video
yes, she went onto wherever men go and met up with Aragorn again. Which to be honest is better than hanging out in the halls of Mandos for however long and then ending up right back in Valinor to live for like, forever.
@@Makkaru112 : Yes, the spirits of Men go to the Halls of Mandos after they die. But only temporarily - until they are ready to make their final journey into the unknown, beyond the circles of Arda.
Some believe that they are then reincarnated in other worlds - after all, there is no proof that Arda is the only world created by Eru.
Tolkien's writing in 'Nature of Middle Earth' tell us that Elves bodies would eventually cease to exist and they would just remain as spirits in the World. Thanks for the great video!
You forgot about Elladan and Elrohir. It is stated that they stayed in Middle-Earth even after Elrond departed for Valinor, and that Celeborn came to stay with them before he too departed for the Grey Heavens. The brothers' final destiny is afaik unknown
I assume they left, they had been a part of the Grey company. They had done all they could. They left their mortal sister and left with their father to see their mother and kin.
No. They did not depart with Elrond. Frodo and Bilbo went on that ship.
Elladan and Elrohir could have remained until Arwen died, then departed on their way on another earlier ship. This video also forgets that The Last Ship also had another passenger.
Samwise Gamgee. He was also on the ship, because he was a Ring Bearer.@@thomasalvarez6456
@@thomasalvarez6456 nopes, it is explicitly stated that they remained in Middle-Earth when Elrond left
when elrond left his kids had to make the same choice. they all chose their Mannish side.
@@michaelreifenstein2114 I dont think that's necessarily the case either. The video even mentions that Aragon, on his deathbed, says to Arwen that she can still chose to go across the sea. Besides, the 'choice' doesnt seem to be time-limited. Elros and Elrond made their choice millenia before the timeline of LotR and Arwen is already well-beyond the lifespan of mortals when she makes her choice. Her brothers could have made either choice, but the fact is that we dont know wether they stayed in Middle-Earth or not
I love Bilbo's poem of farewell. And I also love the final travel between the best of fellows, Legolas and Gimli.
From what I got from Tolkiens text was the following:
Most of the Calaquendi left middle earth, which would include Celeborn, Elladan, Elrohir and Cirdan. Thranduil is another matter, as he was a Sinda, but not from a line of Olwe, Elwe or Elmo. He may have left, but I think he stayed with his people in Mirkwood. The Noldor and Sindar leave and the last ship was Cirdans, who took with him the other two with "crowns." This could be Celeborn and Thranduil or someone else entirely. There is reason to believe that Celeborn left before Cirdan, because he left his new realm of East Lorien after a few years, stayed with Elladan and Elrohir and then departed to be with Galadriel. I guess that the other two rulers where Elladan and Elrohir, because they seemed to have inherited the rule over Imladris from Elrond and Celeborn went there to stay with them. Now to the other elves: We know that Lothlorien was deserted when Arwen went there after Aragorns death and most of its inhabitants went to East Lorien and lived there. Lindon was also inhabited by elves, as was Mirkwood and Ithilien. Most - if not all - of those elves where Moriquendi, so Nandor and their descendants, the Tawarwaith. They where described by Tolkien as being less wise, but more dangerous than the Noldor or Sindar and much more in tune with nature. We can assume that their fate was what Tolkien wrote in the Silmarillion - that they would fade and become spirits of nature and the woods, without form and body, but still there. The Nandor loved their woods more than anything and they never gave a toss about the sea. So they will of course stay and inevitably fade.
At the end of the 3rd Age most elves already are on the move to leave, like Gildor and his company indicate. They keep the havens open for all who wish to leave. So this also means that some dont wish to leave as well. Galadriel decided to leave because she understood that Nenya would fade and she would not be able to keep time and her longing at bay anymore. Also she conquered her worst attribute - her pride - and was then accepted back into Valinor by the Valar. Arwen chose a human fate and death, so she is out of the picture. Elladan and Elrohir succeed Elrond in Imladris, Celeborn founds a new realm, Thranduil stays and rules his kingdom and Legolas even founds his own princedom as well. What happened to Maeglor, Daeron, Elured and Elurin is not secure so they are out of the picture for now. So we still see development from the elves, just not from the Calaquendi but from those who always stayed in middle earth. The Reunited kingdom of course would have a good relationship with them, as would Dale and Rohan or Erebor and the Iron Hills. I think elves where still a sight in the early fourth age, rare but still around but they would have kept to themselves and stayed inside their forests. Maybe their immortality also faded and when they "died" they became spirits of nature. With the rise of men also came the coming of industrialization. This of course would clash with the wood loving Nandor / Tawarwaith who still remained.
I remember that Tolkien wrote in one of his letters to his wife that some of the creatures in his story are metaphors for the world - Tom Bombadil is the embodiment of the spirit of the countryside close to his house; unchanging and powerful. The elves are creatures out of the new world that comes after them and they will fade into that as something new - spirits and echos.
Celeborn, Elladan, Elrohir and Cirdan aren't included in Calaquendi. They never saw the light of the Two Trees.
Or you could have just said 'read the books'!
I don't think elves would just die. If they did they would go to the halls of Mandos.
@jeremygreenwood1021 And if they aren't Feanor, they get a new body and get to enjoy the society of Aman. I never did understand why or how long the Faer was held or for what reason. To teach them not to die? I like to see it as a quiet time for the healing of trauma.
@@Stevie-L-n8g Trust me, I have. Almost all of them in my library except The Letters. Honorable people can differ on which of the history is correct and what can be inferred from it. One is like a historian trying to reconcile different contemporary accounts, depending on point of view.
What I always found strange was Arwen. I understand her grief, yet she had children who would live much longer than other mortal men, and grandchildren, great grandchildren etc. seeing them grow and live would have been a blessing, and of course a curse watching them die. But still, I can’t imagine leaving my children if I had the opportunity to watch them grow and live.
I always pictured some elf going to the Shire to help with the Red Book, adding tales that Bilbo or Frodo may not have known about, before fading away . . .
Bilbo probably did speak to Elves in Rivendell and Frodo was an elf friend too. So they did at some point.
@@thomasalvarez6456many lived in the Old Forest too. Also the shire is right next to Arnor which is interesting as all heck!
@@Makkaru112 Yeah when Frodo met the elves in the old forest he was already called an elf friend from that point on.
That’s all in your imagination buddy. Bless, are you a child?
@@Stevie-L-n8g in my head? sometimes . . .
Daeron and Maglor certainly stayed an dissolved, one turned into the whispers in the waters, the other the whispers in the woods.
I’ve never read that in any of Tolkiens books.
Yes perhaps they stayed. But dissolved is not quite the right word. Over time their spirits consume their physical bodies and they become invisible to the eyes of men. That will be the fate of the elves that remain in middle earth.
@@Stevie-L-n8g Silmarillion states both wandered the world in a sort of madness.
@@SuziQ499 Which in anyone’s book doesn’t mean they ‘Dissolved’.
"And of Maglor it is told that he could not endure the pain with which the Silmaril tormented him, and he cast it at last into the sea, and wandered ever after along the shores, singing songs of pain and regret beside the waves...but he came never back among the people of the elves."
A sad fate, he deserved better. 😞
Since this was Tolkien's original intent to write a legendarium about the Folklore of the Fae for the British Isles, and how they diminished over time, I suppose we can assume that elves stayed along with other elementals.
It is my reading of the lore that there will be members of the fair folk hidden amongst the world till the end of all things...
I believe Tolkien mentioned in The Hobbit that both "rustic Wood Elves" and Hobbits still were present in the current age but that they took pains not to be seen. @@LordEriolTolkien
The interesting thing is that talking did not invent this thought. The notion in Ireland has existed God knows how long 42 warring factions agreed to split reality, the one taking the upper Earth the one descending into the earth. And it is there that they can exist in teeny tiny forms or big forms. Also he was drawing on Greek myth where Immortal or a god diminishes to the point where they just become a whisper on the Wind. He has synthesized a huge amount of Mythology
It gets a bit murky at this point, because at one point Tolkien envisaged the elves (and Tol Eressea) retuning for a final battle, in an event called the Faring Forth. Unfortunately the elves had set forth before the fated day, and they were soundly defeated, with the island being overrun and becoming mortal lands - the British Isles.
@@davidandrews2972 Agreed - in the beginning he was just trying to write a "Faery Tale" for the British Isles. Tolkien Gateway references this with the tale of Ælfwine who washes up on Tol Eressëa and the elf Pengolodh tells him the history of what is essentially the Silmarillion before it was completely fleshed out.
I am sure some stayed. Tolkien told us --- in typically uncertain terms ---
that there could have been a small settlement on the south side of the White Mountains,
and there were some stragglers who wandered through the Shire, as Frodo and company met.
We really don't know how long they remained, though they apparently intended to leave eventually.
And I believe the reason why Legolas built a ship in Ithilien was because that was considerably less trouble
than undertaking a long journey from there to the Grey Havens.
He'd have had to have travelled through the shire and frankly, hobbits piss him right off
Many elves didn't even know if valinor was real, it's very mythical even to them. And for other clans it's distant and to some it's a little taboo for lack of better term. Some don't even know where to find it. Watch GirlNextGondor chat with CluelessFangirl and check all there videos as well as The Red Book and Tolkien Untangled.
@@DanBeech-ht7swhobbits piss who off?
@@Makkaru112 Legolas. He'd rather build s ship himself from scratch that walk through the Shire. Can't blame him. "Oo yes Mister Frodo, no Mister Frodo, can I lick your boots Mister Frodo.". Seriously, haven't you ever wanted to punch Samwise the Groveller?
@@Makkaru112 Everybody. Including each other! 😆
iirc there was a passage in the Silmarillion that said not all the elves left Middle Earth, but the ones who chose to remain were destined to lose their grace and become "a rustic folk of dell and cave..."
I always found that poetic and sad.
It has a lot more meaning to this. Tolkien stated in detail why they were meant to remain in middle earth. All of them. They were only brought to Valinor because of Morgoth threatening these new children of Eru Îlluvatar long before Oromë even found them to begin with which is why for a short time they thought he was Morgoth but quickly found that Oromë was. Wholesome pure being ❤
The fading of the Elves was Tolkien's entire reason for writing about them. If they all left for Valinor, his tales would not result in the modern day remnants of faerie, fairy stories, and fairy folklore.
And this would tie in to the legends of the Real World, things like the Huldufólk (the Hidden People) or elves of Icelandic lore, pixies, faeries and so on who are no longer the mightly Noldor, Sindarin or even Avari. Tolkien intended for his legendarium to be about an alternative history of our own world, hence magic had to fade away before our times.
@@entwistlefromthewho fading can mean different things. Necromancy by GirlNextGondor is great at explaining this.
@@entwistlefromthewho not all elves know if Valinor is real not where to find it. It’s deep stuff.
What I'd like to know is what happened to all the spirits trapped in the Dead Marshes? Were they eventually freed like the spirits of the dead under the mountain, or were they sufferred to exist as ghosts lighting little candles until the breaking of the world?
This is a fantastic suggestion for a video! I actually have a very strong opinion on this that I can back up with textual evidence, so I'm going to make this video next. Thanks for the contribution!
The part about the dead marshes includes Legolas’s Father; Thranduil, & Thranduil’s father Oropher, were to join the Last Alliance in from a different angle to achieve a certain war tactic but Oropher and others got waylayed by orcs & many corrupted men which lead to eventually Oropher dying there, this loss effected Legolas’s father so very deeply forevermore. The bond between he and his son is the same bond Thranduil has with Legolas. And the braid he wears is to honour his grandfather. I believe after his death braids became less common. A sort of respect thing I believe. Both his father and Grandfather lived in Doriath(Elu Thingol’s domain[Elwë], which was heartbea of middle earth; Aside from Gondolin which held this mantle until it’s secret location was given up by a tortured elf who was the son of a very important mother who was the sister of the high king Turgon). All on a landmass called Beleriand that sunk under the sea after a set of disastrous events that lead to many greater outcomes much later on in the legendarium. This here is a whole set of stories of which also includes a quite a bit of Galadriel too but moreso other characters during this era. Of Beren And Lùthien comes to mind and Children Of Hurin!! You’ll fall in love even more after the third movie. Then you can enter into the lore videos like Moviejoob and OmarioRPG have done reaction videos too. Amazing stuff.
One thing to add though is this scene resembles a lot from the other battle Tolkien was involved in called The Battle Of Somme. Look into it and tell me your thoughts.
I’ll add something here though: that clan of elves really didn’t like being under the command of anyone else so they went ahead without the order and let’s just say it didn’t end well. That and they weren’t fond of the Ñoldor… huge history there as to why that is. That and the Sindar subgroup of these clans were a tiny bit more isolationist. But there are many amazing Sindar in the legendarium too Elrond and his two sons and daughter are connected to all of the main clans of men and elves through the union of his half elf father and full elf(quarter goddess) mother. Who essentially played a huge role in saving the world from the original dark lord Morgoth. Gained the Favour Of Valinor. Which subsequently lead to Numenor being a gift from the sea to the men who helped. Becoming blessed. Their land existing within the light of Valinor as it was situated closely to The Undying Lands. (The same ancestry Aragorn has that Èowyn spoke of while they were travelling to Helm’s Deep! (Elrond’s Twin Brother became the first king of Númenor. His name becoming Tar-Minyatur, and those faithful to Eru, the elves and the natural world all of this line carried Tar before their name! Ar for Aragorn is the word meaning Noble in his tongue called Adúnaic. That too is a fleshed out language Tolkien created too. Elvish languages also were placed into the official list of world languages too!
@@RealmsUnravelledcheck out my comments my good sir
My understanding is that these apparitions were phantom illusions placed there by Sauron in an effort to force all who approach Mordor from the north or West down the three main roads.
(Just a theory) I don't think that the spirits that inhabited the drowned bodies of the Elven soldiers belonged to them. These were likely malevolent entities drawn there by Sauron's taint and influence to provide yet another layer of defense to the entrance to Mordor. Recall that when the Hobbits become trapped in the Barrow-downs, it is explained that the Wights are evil spirits of the men of Angmar, sent there by the Witch-king in times past to haunt the Barrows and animate the bones of the old kings of Cardolan. So, it was not the spirits of the Dunedain that were there. Similarly, when the Last Alliance Elves perished on the plain of Dagorlad, their immortal essence passed to the Halls of Mandos, but evil spirits took over their decomposing remains afterwards.
Great video! I always felt that a few of the Elves remained. Reading the appendices many times over it always seemed that Tolkien meant to convey that some stayed in Middle Earth feeling, as you state, the need to heal what they could of the lands after millennia of destruction.
Considering LotR is supposedly the pre-history of our Earth, it would fit with there still being a few elves left, who give rise to our fairy tales (along with Tom Bombadil).
I agree.
I think some stayed and became the rustic folk of woods and dales in future ages.
I'm late to the show, sadly. I was distracted by some Elven friends in whose compa'ny time passes... well, oddly. So I can confirm, they're are still here. And they're pretty nice guys.
I sometimes tell my children stories of Arda, as if they were indeed ages long lost to time. So it is that I also tell them that elves do exist, though just not visible to us anymore. My daughter especially loves that :)
Well Tolkien was both a historian and a linguist which is why his mythology is so well constructed it easily reflects ancient pre deluge history and civilization or the time before time as some call it. It's only now that we are finding remnants of that mysterious time period like Göbekli Tepe or the fact that we shared this planet with other hominids including Homo Floreciensis or nicknamed Hobbits because their appearance is identical downright to the larger than usual feet. In short the insight Tolkien had is nothing short of amazing. So much so I believe that Matusalen and Noah might as well had been the last Numeroan descendants of Adam and Eve.
Yes, some of us are still here.
@@esjope
I saw what you did! 😂
I think that was how Tolkien thought of it -- that the faded elves were the ones that people sometimes got glimpses of out of the corner of their eye while walking in the woods.
There were likely thousands of elves still in Middle Earth for much or most of the 4th age. But they would always have the power and choice to just build a ship and sail West. They don't have to have Cirdan. just to build a ship.
There is an awesome video called “the 7 ages of middle earth”
No they don't. Tolkien said that the Avari cannot leave. When they rejected the original invitation the choice was irrevocable. Only the Eldar can leave.
@@Makkaru112 Where is that video, and who is the user that posted it? I'm not able to find that, but I did find something called "the 7th age of Middle-Earth"
@@donpula6349How do the have the knowledge? Forest eleven are only used to building small rowing vessels. It’s not an inherited knowledge.
@@donpula6349 They can't leave. You have to read Tolkiens' letters.
I’m sure Cirdan(Nelwë/Nowë) was one of the elves that succeeded in the original design of the elves. To remain and guide & teach/mentor mankind until they shift further into the “unseen realm”, and he may yet still have physical form to this day. And as it’s stated in the books: for those who are willing to seek them out and have the hearts and sensibilities to hear AND listen to them that man will have gained something oh so priceless.
i dont see any evidence that he hung out with men, he knew Aragon and his folk, but he did he thing building ships, and left when the business died.
Cirdan departed on the Ringbearer's ship.
@@nerdytom6881 his foresight was as great as his understanding of various things within Arda which not all knew half as much as he did to the degree that he did. But yeah then the rest who DONT go to Valinor will follow suit as designed from Tolkiens own words. They were meant to stay in their ancestral homelands within Middle Earth. ❤️
@@persebra the business ? He wasn’t running a taxi service or whatever. He left because “the dominion of men is now in full swing”
@@persebra Legolas crafted a ship with Gimli from an ancient ent of white bark who essentially was at the end of his own life in a sense and happily allowed them to use his body to make a ship where they went to Tol Eressea and Valinor together.
People forget that the elves are immortal. Their bodies can be slain but that would just vault their souls into the halls of Mandos (uncertain on spelling), which is in the undying lands. So even after they diminished their souls would travel to the undying lands as, unlike men, they were tied to the world itself.
Celeborn left lothlorien long before Arwen arrived. He went to Imladris to live with Elladan and Elrohir. Yet also in either the story of arwen and aragorn or some other place its said "none now walk in the gardens of Elrond" so they would have left Imladris at that time.
Vision of last Elves leaving Middle-Earth is both very romantic and tragically sad at the same time; it's truly an end of an era!
Wouldn't felt it if haven't seen scene from movies. In that case maybe if I would've read all cannon before LotR.
Great video, I am fascinated with this subject and have spent quite a-lot of time reading about it and come to the same conclusion as you do here. Firstly and importantly all children of the union of a half elf and human are half elves, they have the choice to become mortal or remain an immortal elf and all that comes with that including the right to travel to Valinor. Arwen was a Half Elven as her father Elrond was a Half Elf who had chosen to be an Elf his brother Elros had chosen mortality and was the first king of Numenor. Even if the Half Elf parent has chosen mortality his or her children are born with the choice that is awarded to all Half Elves and all their descendants. So all of Arwen and Aragorns children will be Half Elven and we know they had three daughters and one son, so four half elves are living in the fourth age and if they choose as Elrond did they will be immortal and can go to Valinor, we have no imformation on this though. Also this applies to all the children of these four and their children and on. So technically we can be confident in saying there will certainly be Elves in Middle Earth who can go to Valinor as long as the line of Arwen and Aragorn continues.
Many would have stayed, the 'Moriquendi' was a term used by the Elves to describe those who had never seen the light of Valinor, ie never been there. This included the Sindar and Nandor these groups were huge races of the Elves not just a few, they did not feel the pull of the sea in the way Elves from other groups did. To them Valinor wasn’t something that particularly concerned them, it was not part of their history and culture unlike Galadriel, Celeborn and Elrond all they know is one time thousands of years ago some dude said you can come to Valinor and they said no thanks we’re good here and anyway who are you telling is where we can and can’t live? For example the wood Elves ruled by Thranduil were Sindar although Thranduil himself was Sindarin. We know that in the fourth age Thranduil and Celeborn cleansed Mirkwood of evil, returning it to Greenwood and they lived peacefully for many years. We know Celeborn went to Valinor and Lothlorien was empty when Arwen went there on Aragorns death but know nothing of Thranduils people. Legolas eventually did sail to Valinor with Gimli and Tolkien heavily hints Sam did too after Rosie died. So 'The Last Ship' isn't literal, but refers to the last ship taking the specific group of Elves with important leaders and characters at the end of the 3rd age. There was no restriction on any Elf building a ship and going to Valinor at any time so we can be sure Elves stayed in Middle Earth for many thousands of years. The only reasons Elves left for Valinor is they felt a strong pull to do so, they got sad and depressed from the continual cycle of birth and death in ME and could die from sadness (and then they go to the Halls of Mandos and eventually end up back in Valinor) or they fade. This means there bodies finally were almost burnt out by their spirits or 'Thea' if the didn't return to Valinor but this takes many, many years - we're talking thousands. Cirdan was between eight and ten thousand years old, we also know a Valian year is about 10 solar or human years, so we're talking a long long time. The One Ring enabled Galadriels, Elronds and Gandalfs ring to much lessen the sadness Elves could experience in ME, particularly Galdriels - it enabled her to make wherever she lived, ie Loth Lorien much like Valinor. So this power was removed when the one ring was destroyed, so that was a big reason many elves left at this time. But again the Wood Elves etc never lived under the power of any rings of power, they had no experience of life like this or life in Valinor. Basically we can be sure Elves continued to live in Middle Earth for thousands more years but steadily declining in numbers. Some would have sailed away to Valinor, those who did not get depressed or feel a pull would live for thousands of years until they faded. So there could still be pockets of Elves living secretly on Earth today, and some faded Elves too. But we can certainly be sure Elves were still around throughout the Fourth Age, and ages following that right up to today just in smaller and smaller numbers - but this was gradual particularly in the eyes of men whose lives were a blink of an eyes compared to Elves. Also the whole entire point of the existence of Elves as designed by Eru Ilivatar (the god in Tolkiens mythology of ME) was to make ME ready for Men to take over and live in - we clearly need help today in doing that as weve managed to make a complete mess of it!
Perhaps Legolas built his own ship knowing that Gimli was to accompany him on the journey. Maybe the other elves wouldn’t have wanted a dwarf, even an elf-friend of Gimli’s renown, traveling to Elvenhome. So rather than talking about it with others, he took the decision onto himself.
It was in the books that an ollllld white wood ent relinquished his Fëa spirit and let his wolf he used as a gesture to make a ship where Gimli joined in drafting it and went to Tol Eresea with with Legolas(Laiqolassë)
Or he might not have dared to subject his friend to the long and still rather arduous journey over land to Lindon. Gimli was quite old even by dwarf-standards by that time, and just sailing down Anduin was the easier way.
My thoughts as well...
I imagine most of the HIgh and Grey Elves left, but surely a contingent of Silvan Elves who never made it past the Misty Mountains and settled all along the Anduin stayed. Plus Avari who never even made it to the MM and stayed in the East, if there were any left, and were probably already well into their ultimate fate.
The Avari in great number with the Sindar still remain as they were always meant to. To guide and mentor humanity so they could better handle their two pronged gift of Man. dominion over the physical realm while the elves shift deeper into the unseen realm.
Great video!
I think though that you might have missed Arwen's reply to Aragorn when he stated the choices left to her after he would pass away: -
"Nay dear lord," she said, "that choice is long over. There is now no ship that would bear me hence, and I must indeed abide the Doom of Men, whether I will or I nill: the loss and the silence. But I say to you, King of the NUmenoreans, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scored them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Eldar Say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive."
To me that indicates that Arwen believed that there was no actual prospect of her going to the Undying Lands now - perhaps Cirdan and the last of his kin had left by then. Any elves that might have remained were probably mostly from the Avari, who refused the initial summons. Legolas' group who settled Ithilien would have been largely Avari, since that was the population of his father's people in the Greenwood, a part of whom he took to Ithilien. I suspect these were among the very last elves in Middle Earth.
There's also the unknown fate of Maglor, who threw his Silmaril into the sea when he could not hold it, and lingered by the shore for who knows how long? In the book, it stated he may have cast himself into the sea eventually, but he may not have done. But I think probably he would perish through weariness, a broken heart or a quenching of his spirit, much as his grandmother did on giving birth to his father.
Arwen cannot go because she chose to be mortal. Period.
@@scubastevewright Sounds like your on yours. Do elves menstruate?
@@willmercury so, you are just an ass?
Arwen was no longer 'legally' an elf. It implies that she did not age, but after Elessar died went to Lothlorien and lay down and died. Elves were capable of this, and it was a last defence against sorrow or torment. However she did not appear in the Halls of Mandros where dead elves go, but was entitled to the unknown benefits of the afterlife Eru provided.
This is the closest hint we have to what the Gift of Man is. Elves are immortal and do not sicken, but an elf who dies goes to a afterlife crafted by an archangel, Men are mortal and doomed to die, but dead men go to an afterlife crafted by God.
There is an interesting line about Arwen's "green grave" so you wonder who buried her. My thought is that she went back to Lothlorien though it was abandoned because it was there that she met Aragorn and they "plighted their troth" Cirdan, by the way, was waiting to take the last of those who would go.
No doubt Elves who didn’t want to leave Middle Earth.
Perhaps her son, Eldarion, buried her. Or maybe the green grass and trees grew up around her body, with the earth "burying" her.
still don't understand why she can't just leave (after Aragorn's death), she could go with Legolas.
@@bdleo300 if you don’t know then you didn’t read the books.
@@bdleo300 She gave that up. It was a trade off between leaving or having Aragorn. She coudln't have it both ways. Another reason is that elves aren't really sure what happens to mortal souls after they die but they are jealous of the process. That's why they called it the "gift of men". I think they suspected they "went to a better place."
Wonderful video. Your voice, the art, the content. I've always felt that some small remnant of elven kind still exists in our world.
The Avari in great number with the Sindar still remain as they were always meant to. To guide and mentor humanity so they could better handle their two pronged gift of Man. dominion over the physical realm while the elves shift deeper into the unseen realm.
i thought a lot of them were turned into orcs. can see there being a great number remaining.
@@persebraNo some Elves when they were discovered by Melkor in the Valian years were taken and twisted into Orcs. That was not the fate of the vast majority of Elves, including the Avari.
Many Green and Sylvan Elves stayed in Middle Earth they have no connection to the High Elves who did indeed cross over to the sea.
As far as I have been able to tell, Arwen chose to be human - admittedly, High Man, similar to a Numenorean - when she married Aragorn. Her living another 120 years is due to the long life of High Men (from the grace of the Valar), and her dying 'of grief' is also in line with how Numenoreans aged and died - not really from old age, but because they were tired of living. Arwen had no reason to live longer at that point; her love was dead, her son grown and busy ruling Gondor, and none of her kin left in Middle-Earth to talk to... so she laid herself down and surrendered her life after wandering through lands of happy memory for a year. Thus she passed beyond the realm of Arda until the Dagor Dagorath.
First she did a stopover in the Halls of Mandos...
She had the choice to make when Elrond left Middle Earth, to depart with him or remain and become mortal.
At their parting she said to Aragorn 'There is no ship that will now take me'. I gather that to be since she chose to stay and be mortal, she couldn't rescind that 'choice'.
Also in Tolkiens story, that he says 'Those Elves who stay, will fade and become shadows of the past'. This could mean they become in 'time' legend and folklore as the 4th and any subseqeunt age advances.
@@neil999ish yes and no. Elves mate for life so when she betrothed to Aragorn when he was 17, ontop of her giving a particular gift to Frodo after talking with him for a long time in the Garden Of Kings where she hoped he could go to Valinor or Tol Eressea in his stead. Galadriel did the same on two different simultaneously occasions as well which solidified him a spot to sail west with or without his successful self sacrificing deeds to help free Sauron from his long grip upon Middle Earth.
I believe that Arwen’s choice only started to take effect unto her when Aragorn died and all that she has gained has been lost and just like any other elf she gave up her life willingly upon the green hill in Lothlorien.
The last elf is probably a surfer bum in California or a New Age Traveller in Cornwall. "Yeah, I have funny ears. What of it?"
(Elves near extinction) Why the elves couldn’t help as much as some may have wished at the final battle of we Helms Deep & other places: By the Third Age of Middle-earth, the population of Elves had significantly decreased from their numbers in the earlier Ages. It is estimated that there were only a few thousand Elves remaining in Middle-earth by this time.
One reason why Elves didn't have much military prowess to help out more in the Third Age is because they had already fought many battles in the previous Ages, & were weary of war ontop of Lothlòrien(where Galadriel is) being constantly attacked throughout this current story during the trilogy story but the movies never show it. Additionally, many of the great Elven kingdoms had already fallen, & the remaining Elves had scattered across Middle-earth, making it difficult to organize a large-scale military force.
Furthermore, Elves had a deep respect for the natural world, and were hesitant to engage in battles that could harm the environment. They preferred to use their skills in magic and healing to assist in battles, rather than fighting directly.
Despite their reduced numbers and military prowess, Elves still played an important role in the events of the Third Age. They were instrumental in the quest to destroy the One Ring, and many fought bravely in battles against Sauron's forces. However, they had to be strategic about their involvement, as they knew that they could not sustain heavy losses without risking the extinction of their entire race.
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In J.R.R. Tolkien's works, the exact population of Elves in Middle-earth during the Third Age is not explicitly stated. However, it is generally believed that their numbers had greatly diminished by this time, with only a few remaining Elven kingdoms & settlements scattered across Middle-earth.
Some sources estimate that there may have been only a few thousand Elves left in Middle-earth by the Third Age. It is important to note that the exact population of Elves in Middle-earth is not a major focus of Tolkien's works, as he was more concerned with the individual characters & their journeys rather than the demographics of Middle-earth.
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While there are no exact figures given in Tolkien's works, some fans have attempted to estimate the population of Elves in Middle-earth during the Third Age using various mathematical models comparing to what was known about the past. One such estimate, based on the size of Elven settlements & their likely populations, suggests that there may have been around 100,000 Elves scattered across Middle-earth from different clans as it were with slightly different diverging history at certain points during the Third Age.
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The population of Elves in Middle-earth changed over time due to a variety of factors, including wars, migrations, & natural disasters.
During the First Age, Elves were relatively numerous and lived in many different kingdoms & settlements across Middle-earth. However, many of these kingdoms were destroyed during the wars against Morgoth, the first Dark Lord.
During the Second Age, the population of Elves began to decline as many Elves left Middle-earth to sail to the Undying Lands, a paradise-like realm across the sea. This was largely due to the influence of the Valar, the angelic beings who created the world, who offered the Elves a chance to escape the sorrows and limitations of mortal life in Middle-earth.
By the time of the Third Age, the population of Elves in Middle-earth had greatly diminished. Many of the great Elven kingdoms had fallen, & the remaining Elves had scattered across Middle-earth in small, isolated settlements. This was partly due to the wars of the First Age and the destruction of many Elven kingdoms, as well as the gradual decline of the Elves' power & influence in Middle-earth.
Overall, the population of Elves in Middle-earth declined over time, with many Elves leaving for the Undying Lands & many others being killed in wars and other conflicts. By the end of the Third Age, the Elves' numbers had greatly diminished, & they were a shadow of their former glory in Middle-earth.
It’s been their fight for ages alone before Men came along and many of them befriended Men from the very beginning. They share the same fights/The same histories etc!
Let’s just say it used to be a few million so imagine what Galadriel & her husband have seen regarding experiencing their entire race that still dwelled upon middle earth nearly being wiped out into extinction…
It is entirely safe to assume that at some point during his life Aragorn visited the Havens and met Cirdan, and in any event Aragorn would have news of the events in a realm that neighbored his, if for no other reason than on account of the Elves who passed through his realms on the way there.
That’s the greatest image of Arwen I’ve EVER seen.
I’ve always imagined that Arwen at LEAST stuck around until her children passed away and become a super beloved queen of the restored kingdoms of Arnor//Gondor and the free peoples as she has the great ancestors of both Elves & Men alike, The Houses Of The Edain, The Sindar elves, Ñoldor Elves, Vanyar Elves & so on! This is also why I feel we’ve grown over the years to have many different hair colours like them. Gold Vanyar, White Sindar, Brown/Black hair for Ñoldor, and whichever clan had red hair too etc.
Arwen died one year after Aragorn. Her children were still alive at the time.
@@TRivan-kx2biI haven’t read Tolkien in forever, but is there any mention of Arwen and Aragorn’s son in the Tolkien Appendices that we get a glimpse of in the ROTK film and what happened between her and her son after Aragorn passed on?
@@cha5 Eldarion, son of Aragorn, is mentioned in the appendices. As for what happened between him and Arwen, all it says is that she said good bye to him and his sisters after Aragon's death. Arwen then went to Lorien and died there.
@@TRivan-kx2bi I see, Thank you very much for that information.
@@cha5 yes. And she died on the hill they met and became betrothed upon.
Thank you for keeping Middle Earth alive🤗🥰🌎
Thank you for this wonderful video! Your videos are becoming huge favourites of mine!
This was my first time watching your videos, thank you for a great incite to middle earth.
At the end of the day, none of it matters. But it's fun speculating on things like whether some elves stayed behind in middle earth. I'm enjoying these videos. Please keep them coming.
I always thought that Arwen wandering the forests of Lorien in despair after Aragorn’s death was a weird choice.
Wouldn’t it give her purpose to be with her children, grandchildren, etc? After hundreds of years, how valuable would it be for each king to have a great-great(etc) grandmother with so much wisdom & memory involved in their life and rule?
If I had the choice to be a kind of mentor to my entire family line and help ensure they were successful, I’d take that in a heartbeat.
The artwork is beautiful!
You should read the letters of JRR Tolkien. He added a lot of clarifications which are not in the histories or the completed works. He said very clearly in one of his letters that the Avari do not leave, and cannot leave. When they refused the initial summons from the Valar the choice was irrevocable. I assume the choice also applied to their children. Only Eldar can leave, but Eldar includes those who set out to leave but changed their minds. Legolas can leave because he's an Eldar, even though he never stepped foot in Valinor. Most of the Mirkwood elves are Avari, but they have an Eldar ruling class. Thranduil can leave if he wants but there's nothing in the lore to indicate that he ever does. My guess is he has something to do with the Wild Hunt in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle. To understand where Tolkien was going you have to also look at his sources of inspiration.
What do you presume does Thranduil have with the Wild Hunt?
I'm missing any discussion regarding the Elves of the east. Not much is known about those groups of Elves but they did exist. In the eastern regions beyond Dale and near the realm of Dorwinion. These Elves were not mentioned in the story of the Lord of the Rings but just as the Easterlings or Haradrim who were only mentioned as being part of the great host that besieged Gondor, they did very much exist. There is no indication that any of them chose to sail westwards, in fact many of them never even saw Valinor at all. So these Elves most definitely(well as definitely as it gets considering the very limited lore we have on them) remained in middle earth.
The video is great in many aspects, so thanks and congratulations :) Still, some Elves remained in Middle-earth (our world according to Tolkien) in later ages. But they lost their ancient greatness.
@williampo8304 You might be quite right. In some ways, Rivendell was maybe inspired by Papal Rome: a place powerful not with armies but with knowledge, ruled by a lord of vast connections and influence over kings, the place of an influential Council.
I just feel sad for Arwen - dying alone in a faded elven sanctuary, abandoned and forgotten by her people. i know it was her choice but still. 😢
I don’t think Aragorn fully understood the doom of Arwen, and her brothers, that they had to leave with Elrond or accept the doom of men. That was cast at the end of the first age and start of the second, when the half eleven, (and part Maia), Elrond and Elros, had to chose humanity or eleven kind .
I personally suspect the departure of the last of the Elves marked the end of the fourth age, along with the final disappearance of other thinking and speaking creatures like the Ents and Dwarves, leaving only humans, by which point, over many centuries, the descendants of Arwen and Aragon had multiplied and spread, until it was impossible for the line of Luthien and Beren to be destroyed, without it being an end of human kind too.
The movies I think changed the lore a bit to say that Arwen and her brothers *had to leave with him* (or before him) or they would die. That isn't however how JRRT framed it in the books. It was Arwen's choice to cleave herself to a mortal that doomed her to die, not whether she accompanied her father. Therefore, her brothers could have escaped her fate if they had left at some point after Elrond had already gone.
My personal view - not backed up by anything JRRT wrote, i.e. my "headcanon" - is that they stayed to make sure their sister was OK and remained until after she passed away. At some point after that (they may or may not have stayed a bit longer to make sure Eldarion's rule started out well, being his only uncles), I feel they would have sailed over to Sea, not least to meet with their mother again, whom they lost centuries before to orcs and who would have probably have been reincarnated by then.
I think Aragorn would have known the consequences - after all, he grew up in the same way as an Elvish lord would in Elrond's house. His own distant family history of Beren and Luthien was an instructive tale which he clearly knew of.
@@Torstenn-b3x I share your view on why they stayed but think in the books it said they had to leave with Elrond., I will have to check.
I suspect Celeborn may also have stayed (at least in part) for a similar reason.
I believe the first born who remained in Middle Earth existed for some time, likely deep into the 4th age. Many would have experienced heartbreak, some reduced to near/madness and reduced in wisdom and heartiness. Yes, some would have built ships and sailed West. Others, I believe, passed to the Halls of Mandos as I believe did Arwen. Perhaps the firstborn who remained behind devolved into what our cultural stories became "cryptids," such as Leprechauns.
Arwen, like her foremother Lúthien, chose mortality when they married their respective husbands, Aragorn and Beren. It is said that once the Choice is made, it can never be reversed. Both Arwen and Lúthien when they died, they went where the Secondborn were sent and only Illuvatar knew where. The Secondborn return for the Dagor Dagorath.
Moments before Aragorn died, he asked Arwen to take a ship and sail West. She responded that there would be no ship to take her.
Tolkien however has stated that Maglor never sailed West.
Thanks!
Hi Jim, thanks so much for your kind support! 😊
Yeah just because the last ship sales doesn’t necessarily mean every last elf in ME was on board…
300th like here, this was a very interesting video. Well thought out and thought inducing.
The images look stunning.
Excellent analysis. Thank you.
02:15 I always interpreted this exchange as noting no ship would/could carry ARWEN, because her choice is irrevocable. She is counted among Men, now. Forever.
02:47 the Appendices say Celeborn left for Rivendell.
08:03 there is also a strong hint that the Elves should have remained in Arda, rather than relocate to Valinor. Such had been Eru's original plan.
10:24 Do not forget that as each Elven body dies, each Elven spirit is called to the Halls of Mandos.
An interesting take, but I think it's incomplete in that it leaves out many of JRRT's writings from the History of Middle-Earth. There are intriguing "philosophical" writings on the nature of Elves. While never part of the works published in his lifetime, they do constitute the reams of thoughts going through his mind in the near 20 years of his life after publication of the LotR.
Of especial note here is the "fact" that in mortal lands, sooner or later their Fëar (their spirit or soul) would burn out their physical bodies, leaving behind an insubstantial existence. Tolkien's way of segueing to the Fey, Sidhe, Fairies of later human stories, I can only presume. There is also, in the back of my mind - and I've been trying to find the quote again in the thousands of pages of HoME - something about Avari losing the right to go West! There was a cut-off, it seems, a veritable "you snooze, you lose"! How that would work when, while still corporeal, they could at worst physically end their lives and find themselves in the Halls of Mandos and thence be reborn? No idea! Perhaps it ended very sadly: losing their bodies, becoming pure Fëa, they could no longer physically die and so never even leave Middle-Earth. There was something about that turning them malicious and bitter, again linking to modern folk tales of the Unseelie?
As for the short Last Ship: if we want to be nit-picky, Celeborn and Cirdan were not kings and were never referred to as such. So, who the 3 Elven kings were remains speculative. My reading of the brief story was always that it was focused on the fate of the mortal human stuck to remain rather than the literal "who" on that ship.
How long did the Elven settlement in Ithilien last? That may be tied to how long the Elessarian Renaissance of the re-united Kingdom lasted: while agonisingly brief, we do get the impression that, unsurprisingly going by JRRT's Weltanschauung, a new shadow arrived far too soon, in the lifetime of Elessar's son or grand-son. As is typical of humans. In the blink of an eye for Elves. They may have carried on a bit longer after Legolas, but if Gondorian kids started playing at being Orcs and some new cult arising, they would have gone back to be beings of suspicion and fear. Legolas building his own boat and leaving from Belfalas may have just been convenience (or because Gimli was too old for a journey through Eregion) and continuing a tradition going back to Amroth's days.
Fun speculation, though I've tried to stick to "I bloody *know* I read that, but it's all a jumble from the info overload that is HoME".
New to your channel and enjoying it immensely! Please do something with Luthien & Beren and Tom Bombadil if you can! ty
Cirdan did not have golden hair. But was gray haired and bearded. One of the very first , perhaps THE first elf to awake
Círdan is equally as old as Ingwë, Finwë, Elwë(Elu Thingol), Olwë, Nelwë, Now(which that or Nelwë was Círdan’s true name), 30,000. The elves third cycle as it’s called.
They all are a few generations down from Tata&Tatyë, Imin&Iminyë, Enel&Enelyë, the other part of the story is those ambassadors towards Valinor that lead the hosts on the gravest journey across the entire continent of Middle Earth were literally one of the sons from each of those three pairs of OG elves that I just mentioned. And Gold hair means it’d be a Vanyar Elf and they are very special and rare.
Yes that's because he was in his third life cycle. When they reached that cycle Elves could Indeed grow beards.
@@Makkaru112Speaking of them I have always wondered what happened to the first Three fathers and Mothers of the Elves. They rejected the summons to Valinor. Maybe they traveled further east at some point.
@@Alexs.2599Perhaps the Dark Hunter got them in the early days.
Whatever the reason or which elf clan they belong to, as stated in the prophecy of Mandos, the elves who choose to stay in Middle-earth are doomed to fade away faster than the rest of the Arda Marred.
Who was he to say, really? The Elves were created by Eru Iluvatar, and he would be the judge of their ultimate fate.
Don't forget, it says in Appendix B of return of the king that Sam boarded the last ship after Rosie's death.
This was an excellent telling
Nice video, It's a sa d thought that all Elves departed although the offspring of the elf/man unions remained but this sadness runs through all Tolkien's tales concerning Middle Earth.
One small criticism and it is a very small one, Cirdan ought to be pronounced with the letter R trilled. This isn't normal for an Englishman I know but Tolkien would have liked it that way. If you listen to interviews with him he nearly always did that.
Cirrrrdan, Morrrrrdorrrrrr, Merrrrry, Perrrrregrrrrine, Gondorrrrrr, Borrrrromirrrrrr, Farrrramirrrr
@@anni.68 well, you may be rrrrrright
@@anni.68yup. Listen to Finnish ! There is one Fin fellow who did the lament of Finrod Felagund and it was beautiful. Sung like a dirge
Hah! I had a yellow cat named Rumil, and I always called him with that trill at the beginning, like a mother cat calling her kitten. Tolkien, of course, did not like cats.
@@erynlasgalen1949 a rumil is the name given to the strip of fabric that the Thuggee used to strangle their victims
Ive always imagined that Arwen waits until her son is well settled onto the throne and then leaves. Ive also imagined that Legolas and Gimli waited until after Aragorns death to pass into the west
I always assumed some stayed and especially in places like Gondor and Arnor intermingled with the population
Also gotta ask what “percent” of elven blood did Prince Imrahel have? I have been thinking about this for a long time. Since there are only 3 recognized unions of high elves and mankind, where did this other population come from?
Nicely done Sir! You earned my subscription!
I think the three elven lords in the poem did not include Thranduil, because i cant picture him giving up his kingdom in his pride. But cant imagine who else it may be. Glorfindel, maybe? I dont think JRRt specified when he returned.
Yeah, but what's a king without a people? If even his son Legolas sailed west - along with the dwarf Gimli - most of his subjects probably left too.
It's not specified indeed, but my assumption would be that Glorfindel left when Elrond did.
@@thomasplinguidy4588Not if they were Avarri, or even descendents of the Eluwaith and Greenelves. Why would they want to go? Heaven can be boring, while the real world holds challenges.
I love listening LOTR lore in the background.
consider that Cirdan wouldn't allow Gimli to sail west thus Legolas said he would build his own ship and sail with Gimli
Gimli might have been the reason that Legolas set sail when he did. After all, Legolas had no especial need to go then, being immortal and able to build his own ship, except for the fact that Gimli was not immortal and was old by then, and perhaps not long for the world.
Nowadays one cannot trust anything digital being free from AI anymore. But if this is your real voice, it it beautiful and I could listen to it night and day.
DAYUM, in those pics Legolas is one fine ass elf
I like to think that many magical beings that were left slowy disappeared throughout Middle Earth after the last ship left for Valinor. These beings, including Elves, Dwarves, Fairies and Gnomes, were sometimes spotted by the Celts and other groups of people, and inspired the fairytales of Europe and England.
Some or many stayed I think. Cirdan, I think deserves a vacation in Valinor.
I feel like a very quiet backdrop soundtrack would make these more soothing to listen to.
What about the sons of Elrond? I know they stayed after their father left but was under the impression they planned to go to Valinor eventually.
Mainly to be with their sister Arwen. But as my short story shows both for Elurèd & Elurín equally to Elledan & Elrohir both for various reasons to take the opposite choice of eachother. It’s hard to explain without giving the whole story away
Really? What writings of Tolkien gave you that impression? Just stick to the books son.
i bet they left with their grand daddy.
@user-nz6dx2fj6h The books are numerous and sometimes contradictory, as Christopher Tolkien was wont to publish his father's writer's notes. I used to joke that every time he found a scrap of paper with his father's handwriting on it wrapping an old flowerpot it went into the legendarium.
@@erynlasgalen1949 As a member of the Tolkien Society I find that offensive. As a reader, I find it offensive. I pretty much find it offensive. No one is allowed to criticise Tolkeins works or his sons.
Tolkien actually detailed what happens to the few (mostly Avari) elves that stayed past the last ships leaving. Christopher Tolkien included it in the last volume of the History of Middle Earth. The elves essentially become the 'fey' of Britannic legend. Due to the nature of their spirits (their 'fea') and the passing of magic and the elder things from the world, as the age of men that began at the end of LOTR turned into 'history' as we know it.
What happened is that they fade, their spirits remaining while their bodies (hroa in elvish) fade into something almost incorporeal. Becoming nearly invisible, being only occasionally encountered by men in ancient glades and deep woods, and the interaction creating an unhealthy longing for something ineffable in the hearts of those people who had passing encounters with them. The fey of Britannic legend.
The Elves were *designed* to fade when it became the time of men. The three elven rings, Narya, Nenya and Vilya held off the decay for a time until their power was broken with the destruction of the one ring. From then on, the fading was irreversible.
If memory serves, all those elves that witnessed the trees in Valinor, along with their descendants, had the light of creation in them and would hear the call of the sea and leave for Valinor, while those that chose to stay in Middle Earth did not.
Would love to know where the images come from that are used in this video. They have a very ethereal quality and are very beautiful.
"The Last Ship" was, Tolkien told us, a tale of Firiel, a woman who was a long-ago ancestor of Aragorn. I have always read it as noting a change in the departure point for the Elves sailing to Valinor -- the ships to the West no longer sailed "down the seven rivers", but rather thereafter set off from the Grey Havens, under the watchful eye of Cirdan. Who the three kings were, I have no idea; although your interpretation is an interesting one. Perhaps the poem is one that blends history with prediction? The fact remains that the poem was ancient before the Ring was destroyed.
Cirdan the Inept if he built a ship with the sail behind the shrouds and backstays. 1.42
For the Avarti that were not from Doriath or under Thrandil (since he was a Grey Elf)- who knew very little or nothing of the Undying lands, many may have stayed in Middle Earth - they were already 'diminished'' especially if you are talking about a comparison to Galadriel and other Noldor.
CIrdan wasnt a "king"; if it was 3 kings it was probably Celeborn who according to the appendices stayed behind for quite awhile after Galadriel left
king is just a poetic word for boss. cirdan was certainly a boss
@@persebra havent read much Tolkien, have you... the title would have been a VERY important designation.
@@tonyf8167 "the title would have been a VERY important designation."
not from a poet's standpoint.
remember the main poem
rings for 3 Elvin kings. etc... None of the holders were "kings", were they?
@@persebra were not talking about a poem, the info is covered in the appendices
I would love to hear you do your own readings of the books 🧐🤩
I like to think Maglor was still hovering around somewhere all
Solitary playing his music even during the book times and after...
Solid presentation, I liked your video. However it has a few small errors which compound as you analyse and come to your conclusions.
1. There is no singular 'Last Ship' except by happenstance. Any ship built to make the one way journey to Valinor is called a Last Ship. The finality is based on the nature of the journey, not the order of departure. There logically would indeed be a last-to-depart Last Ship, probably crewed by 'rustic elves' in a latter age. It's import might not even be remarked upon in Valionr at its arrival if other elves yet lingered and never made the journey,
2. Elves do not have any urge to remain in Middle Earth per se, they have instead a lack of urge to depart for Valinor, cultivated by living deep inland in isolated and semi-wild places. The urge is triggered by proximity to the sea. Whether the western ocean triggers this or any sea is uncertain. When Galadriel sent tidings to the Fellowship she included a warning to Legolas to avoid the shores, or the sound of gulls. Legolas had to risk this by following Aragorn to confront the Corsairs. Since that time he was doomed to leave Middle Earth, but remained while Ellesar was alive. It is likely that Gimli also grounded him enough to dampen the call. For the record the grey ship Legolas made which he used to Gimli to travel to Valinor is a Last Ship.
3. Cirdan left with Galadriel, Elrond and Gandalf as ring bearers of the three Elven Rings. So his departure was early in King Elessar's reign. This Last Ship was the Ringbearers ship and was an important portent. It should be noted that Cirdan dwelt in the Grey Havens for many millenia. How did he achieve this? By building the Last Ship he was to depart on slowly over the course of centuries. He worked on it to keep the hunger of departure at bay and keep his peace, yet tarried so he could remain in Middle Earth.
So. Cirdan, a ringbearer, did not depart with Thranduil. The Last Ship poem most likely refers to the Ringbearers Last Ship. Perhaps the most important of its kind due to its significance in Valinor and to us as it is the ship Merry and Pippin saw depart. The three crowned heads are Cirdan, Elrond and Galadriel. However this is conjecture and it is possible that it refers to another Last Ship carrying royalty. Perhaps Thranduil's ship, perhaps an earlier ship built when the exile of the Noldor ended after the war of Wrath.
I agree with your conclusion: that after the departure of Celeborn, Thranduil, Cirdan, and Legolas, in FA 120, it seems likely that several thousand Silvan elves remained in Ithilien, Lindon, the Falas, and in Thranduil's lands in northern Mirkwood. Another aspect of Middle Earth that we have no knowledge of, is the overall distribution of Elven-kind in the first centuries after their awakening at Cuiviénen. This place was in the far east, on the inland Sea of Helcar, and who's to say that all of the Avari migrated westward toward Eriador and Beleriand? Might some groups of Avari headed south, and ended up in Far Harad, or further East, along the east coast of the continent, far, far beyond the limits of any maps held in Gondor, Numenor, or Imladris? As mentioned in other sources, Allatar and Pallando never returned to report on their journeys into the far east and south, and who can say what they might have discovered about the people they met? Tolkien limited his stories to the areas mapped in LOTR and The Silmarillion, and after the War of Wrath, much of the world was radically altered - the maps in The Silmarillion no longer applied (Beleriand was mostly inundated), and after the Akallabeth, the world was not even flat - it was now a sphere and the Undying Lands were completely removed to a different plane of existance. Tolkien made it clear in his later writings that "the world" is "our" world, which implies that The Shire, Gondor, Rohan, Rhovanion, and Rhun are all on the Eurasian continent. Far Harad is probably Africa, and somewhere far to the west of the Grey Havens, lie the lands that would one day be known as the Americas, while seven thousand miles to the east of The Shire, one would come to the western coast of the Pacific Ocean in China and the Russian Far East. Could it be that groups of the Avari ended up there, completely beyond the scope of even the furthest known travels of anyone we know of from LOTR and The Silmarillion, except possibly Alatar and Pallando (and Ulmo, of course, the Lord of all waters in Arda). Could there have been Elves in the America's, blown there by storms in ships sailing from Middle Earth after the Akallabeth? Tolkien never expanded his writing to explore such possibilities, but he did state in his letters that Middle Earth is on "our" planet Earth, just very far removed from us in the remote past. So it's not impossible that "in-universe", Elves could have migrated to all of the Eurasian landmass, Africa, and possibly the Americas. Those Elves would likely have been completely unaware of the War of the Ring and the downfall of Sauron, and simply gone on about their lives. And who's to deny the possibility that some of the Entwives might still survive in some forest in the Far East; I'd like to think so.
Tolkien never specifies "how many" ships per year Cirdan was building, or "how many" individual elves were departing during the last years of the third age and the first century of the fourth. But I have read somewhere that when Cirdan built the Last Ship, he was aware, either through his own senses, or perhaps as a intuition granted him by the Valar, that all of the elves who wished to move to the Undying Lands would be aboard when the time came for departure, and that he would not need to worry that he would leave anyone behind.
A very interesting video - thank you. The fires have called and I have answered. ;)
But there is a question lingering in my mind, given all those uncertainties in Tolkiens work. Would it be feasible and 'wise'/acceptable to continue his work and expand the world of Middle-Earth with new stories, myths and histories? Not in the form of fan fiction, but in a way that these works would be considered as part of the canon?
Not all elves used the Grey Havens to travel to the undying lands.
The elves of the Rhovanion side for the most part used ports located in Gondor to travel to Valinor.
I must recall the Amroth and Nimrodel tale and how Mithrellas the elf ended with Imrazor the Númenórean. They intended to go to Valinor.
Indeed, It was never written anywhere in the lore what was the final word on Elves all removing west. I have always read into it that some stayed and faded in accordance of their own desires.
Wasn't the straight road reserved only for the Elves that saw the light of the trees, including the Sindar? But the Green elves and the refusers never settled in Beleriand, and thus never saw the light, even in the twilight. This would mean, that while the road is open to them, they would never feel the call. Nor long for something they never had to begin with. This would translate to these elves eventually becoming the fey spirits of old, that Tolkien associated with tree and bush, spring and lake. And they eventually faded into oblivion, becoming more spirits and memories then actual living matter.
Hmm, perhaps. Though take Legolas for instance. Though largely Sindarin, he would not have seen the Light of the Trees himself as he was born in Middle Earth. His ancestors were probably from the group who stayed in Middle Earth to look for Elwe (Thingol) when he vanished on meeting Melian, so they never crossed the sea in the first place either. And yet, we know that Legolas went over the straight road (not to mention Frodo, Bilbo and it said Gimli who weren't even Elves)
Cirdan is also another from Elwe's group who never crossed over the sea, until he eventually (probably) did.
@@Torstenn-b3x good points all, though by seeing the light here (as mentioned above) i also included those who saw the light from Beleriand as well, as the light from the trees could be spotted as a distant shimmer in the west, at least for those of elven senses. Aside from that, the call of the west was extended not only to those that saw the trees themselves but to their descendants as well, like Elrond for example, who wasn't even a full bloodied elf, and to his children as well, which make them 2 generations removed from the original "Valinorians".
Alternatively, there is a possibility that the call was felt not by those that made the journey, as in completed it, but those who undertook it, even though they never finished it. This would mean that all but the Avari felt it. And by extension this means literally ALL the elves we come in contact with through SImarillion, The Hobbit and LOTR. But then again, the invitation by the Powers was never really extended to them after the War of Wrath. At least not as far as i can remember.
Hmm . . . What of Eol, who most certainly lived in Beleriand? He seems to have been one of the Lindi, if not actually Avarren. I think there were Greenelves in Beleriand.
@@erynlasgalen1949 in the land of Ossiriand yes. Are we to consider them among the avari though? They went on the journey, though they did stray from the path among the first.
As for Eol himself, while one of the few elves explicitly labeled as "dark", had he survived the end of the First Age, i like to think the Powers would extend the invitation to him as well. Though, he would probably refuse it, as he seems to want to have nothing to do with Valinorians, except maybe take some of them as wives...
@ilejovcevski79 "Seldom were tales of lust told among the Eldar . . ." I guess Eol would be a rare exception, eh? Although the maiden at first was not unwilling. Sorry, it is often hard to reconcile the various writings of Tolkien, and I don't take it as seriously as Scripture. I do recall mention of Avvari making it over the Misty Mountains, but I really can't remember where. I've been at this since 2005, and I'm not as young as I once was.
When finally the fea, the spirit, of elves that remained overcomed their hroa, the body, they lost their autonomy, and become directly subservient to the Valar. Then the Valar just whispered "Come".
Arwen's passing was not tragic. Leaving the circles of the world, being with Aragorn again? That's far less tragic than living an immortal life without him forever.
It is tragic to some. I feel sad about it because she was originally able to avoid it.
But it was best for her because she loved Aragorn and should go to the Halls and be with him.
A lot of ghost and phantoms we feel today are probably faded elves that stayed middle earth
Is there any info about what happened to Arwen's 2
brothers that stayed in MiddleEarth?
Yes. But we’d have to discuss it to get to the bottom of it. If you’re willing
I’m not pretty deep into the lore of middle earth, but didn’t galadriel refused to sail west and later wasn’t allowed anymore to do so? I don’t know if that changed after the death of sauron, or that she died in middle earth, so could someone explain me what happened to her that she’s not one of the last elves in middle earth?
Those that refused the Valar were pardoned at the throwing down of Melkor and due to the entreaties of Earendil. She chose to remain for as long as she did, but she wasn't barred anymore from crossing over the sea.
Galadriel went West fairly soon (less than two years) after the Battle of the Shire along with Frodo, Bilbo, Elrond and Gandalf. Celeborn sticks around for a while before following her, though he moves from Lothlorien to Imladris not long after she leaves.
I never could understand why Tolkien said both that Arwen couldn't change her mind because there was no boat to take her and that Legolas made his own boat. Arwen was way older than Legolas, she would probably have the knowledge to be able to make a boat, or could find it, if she wanted to. She wouldn't have, because she'd made her choice. I just don't understand why Tolkien wrote it that way. Why not just emphasize that she stuck with her choice and did not change her mind?
Marrying Aragorn was the point at which Arwen truly lost her immortality.
When he suggested that she could repent, she knew she could not do so if she wanted to.
It is part of Tolkein's mythology that some elves remained and they are still with us today, having Faded, we cannot see them unless they purposefully choose to reveal themselves to our minds.
That quote about Elves living during the time of the kings refers to the Kings or Arnor and Gondor earlier in the third age.
At least one elf would definitely remain...Maglor was not allowed to return after the Oath and the Doom of Mandos. He supposedly still wanders the shores or the world lamenting what happened.
Correct. I have often thought that somebody might find Maglor and ask him whereabouts he threw the Silmaril into the sea. Maybe also offer him a recording contract for his music. I recall reading that he was accounted the second best among all the elves. :)
Great job!
Imladris, home of Elrond and his sons, Elladan and Elrohir seems to have been missed. Plus Glorfindel would also be staying there beyond the departure of Elrond, then Celeborn.
Where do these illustrations come from? They are amazing.