Then i guess don't give them pointy ears. I remember reading they had long hair, regardless they are called something different and have completely different lives.
> They certainly can produce offspring with Men just fine.
While true, in fantasy all kinds of mixes are possible that result in creatures like minotaurs, half-orcs, half-demons, half-dragons, etc., and those are obviously not human.
Not giving them some distinguishing physical characteristic sounds like a great way to make the work more difficult to understand. Personally I don’t mind the change.
> I remember reading they had long hair, regardless they are called something different and have completely different lives.
Some of them had long hair, but presumably others don’t. I’m not aware of any part of the Legendarium which suggests all elves had long hair. That would seem like an uncharacteristic thing for Tolkien to write about them.
> While true, in fantasy all kinds of mixes are possible that result in creatures like minotaurs, half-orcs, half-demons, half-dragons, etc., and those are obviously not human.
This is not D&D. As far as I know, there’s nothing in the Legendarium suggesting there can be unions of anything other than Men and Elves, Men and Orcs, and Elves and Maiar.
A union of an Elf and Maia happened exactly once, and is a bit of an odd becuse Maiar choose the physical form they take. Melian presumably clothed herself in the body of an Elf, at least as far as mattered.
The Men and Orcs thing is unusual in two ways. One is that it’s not explicit how they were combined. Saruman did it… somehow, but the implication is that it was through his art (magic). yhe other is that, depending on the day, Tolkien considered Orcs to be anywhere between corrupted Elves/Men, fallen Maiar, or something like animals. He wasn’t ever comfortable with the ramifications of any of these different origins had, but I think that at the time of writing Lord of the Rings, the idea was that they were corrupted Elves. I’m not super sure on that though. Either way though, I can see a lot more philosophical justification for Men and Orcs being crossed than Men and dragons, balrogs, or anything else that isn’t an Elvish/Mannish being.
Anyway, this is a long way to say that just because it happens in other fantasy settings doesn’t mean it applies here. Tolkien thought about this kind of stuff a lot, and wrote extensively on it. If you’re interested in reading more about this kinda thing, I highly recommend the History of Middle Earth series of books, especially Morgoth’s Ring, which deals a lot with the nature of existence (both physical matter and things like souls) in the Legendarium.
> ...there’s nothing in the Legendarium suggesting there can be unions of anything other than Men and Elves, Men and Orcs, and Elves and Maiar.
Tolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-earth[1] has a long section discussing this. Tolkien regarded elves, men, hobbits, dwarves, and orcs all as races of one species, who thus could interbreed.
Thanks! That was the impression I had, but as I was writing the comment I realized I couldn’t recall any specific line that made me think that all the children were basically the same species (though I did know that Hobbits were counted among Men).
Fair points. Sure, pointy ears I guess is expected, although I think they could definitely make it work otherwise. Regarding the races, it seems there is a vagueness to the lore which means an opportunity to stay within Tolkien and still expand it with these types of questions (what it means to be human, etc). This is one way they could work with what already exists while adding something new.
The situation is more complicated than that though. The apparent vagueness is not a sign that there is wiggle room, but rather that there are existing contradictions the author didn’t manage to resolve. The reason the origins of the Orcs changed so often is because Tolkien laid down some pretty hard boundaries in his world as to what it meant to be an Elf/Man/Dwarf, what Melkor was able to do (not capable of independent creation), free will existing, Orcs always being evil, and his desire to maintain consistency with his Catholic faith regarding salvation.
But because of a vague memory about something you read sometime (which looks like it was wrong), the presence of short-haired elves breaks your immersion and damages your enjoyment of the show?
Ok, well I'm just alluding that there's probably source material around certain differences. I wouldn't mind short-haired elves, but personally I'd want some justification that makes sense within the story since it deviates from what is previously established.
I mean if I had glorious elven hair, I would probably not cut it. Also short is one thing, but in RoP the elf Arondir has a military buzz cut, which raises more questions.
> They certainly can produce offspring with Men just fine.
While true, in fantasy all kinds of mixes are possible that result in creatures like minotaurs, half-orcs, half-demons, half-dragons, etc., and those are obviously not human.