The Drow

Remove all ads!

In terms of good and evil, Tolkien's elves were very human. Some of them were wonderfully kind, generous, valorous, and self-sacrificing. Others were base, greedy, suspicious, arrogant, and even murderous, but this is generally something applied to individuals, or at times a single group that committed an action together. It doesn't describe races or tribes.

 

And here I thought I was reading a Splunge post...wise@$$!

 

That's exactly the impression I got when I watched the movies by Peter Jackson. Why all the blond Elves with dark eyebrows that looked so bad and so fake?

 

Caradhras - I found this http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Dark_Elf

I have not been home sine we started this conversation. I will be tonight, so hopefully I can check up on the Lost lore reference. But above is interesting. Seems "Dark" Elf was also used to reference corrupted Elves of Morgoth. Hmmm, our very first Drow?????

 

Thanks for the link. If we accept the quote without any reference to be true it doesn't mean much anyway. Tolkien used to make things up as he wrote and he explored alternatives whether keeping or discarding ideas as he worked on a chapter and sometimes introducing a character in previous chapters (for instance Arwen was a late creation and Strider was originally a Hobbit named Trotter).

I have to look for my copy of the Letters to see if I can find a precise reference. It may take some time.

 

Dark Elves are also in Norse mythology actually. They are named "svart alfar", wich translates as dark elves. They were creatures that did mischief and stuff like that. I forget the rest. Long time since I had that stuff in school.

 

That's very interesting. I read the Edda but it was a long time ago and in French so my memory is not very precise. I have a question though: didn't these Dark Elves have much in common with the Dwarves in Norse mythology?

There could be a link with Tolkien's Dark Elf since Eöl was described as being very close to the Dwarves from whom he learned many secrets.

 

I have been reading my copy of "War of the Jewels". It states in the Chapter concerning Maeglin that Tolkien had a few ideas on where Eol rec'd his training as a smith. Another version was he was a thrall of Melkor in Angband for a time and learned his smithcraft and earned his title Dark Elf from his captivity. I will read thru some of "Morgoth's Ring" and the "Lost Tales 1 & 2" as well later tonight if I find time. I know there is a Dark skin reference somewhere, I just have to find it. Tolkien created many paths for the story of Aredhel(Isfin),Maeglin(Morleg) and Eol. He changed names depending upon the meaning of the name and impact to the story on many occassions.

 

He changed pretty much everything at one point or another so it's very difficult to have a definitive source. Let's not forget that his son Christopher edited most of his unpublished work and he had to select what to include and what to leave out.

So there is definitely a possibility that you'll find a reference to a darker skin tone but I'm convinced you won't find it in the Silmarillion.

 

Yeah, Inever expected it find it in the Sil, I know I "read" it elsewhere. And now I have my "answer". I have nice little collection of Tolkien "stuff". Various articles and pubs from when I was in college, written from both fans and other writers. I have a paper I wrote on Tolkien's Middle Earth from my freshman yr of college for an English Comp class, a very long time ago. It was I who wrote that my interpretation of Maeglin and Eol was fitting of a AD&D Dark Elf, by taking his wordings to a literal meaning of "Dark" . My prof completely disagreed and gave me a grade of a C on the paper. She was a real know-it-all Bastard!

 

I have re-read thru The War of Jewels, Morgoth's Ring, Lays of Beleriand, Lost Tales 1 & 2 and Unfinished Tales. I found no skin reference. So, in conclusion, you are right Carahras, I was wrong and my memory is going.

 

Mine is going too so I wasn't 100% sure either. Tolkien did use many different ideas in various drafts so I wouldn't have been surprised if you had been right.

The great quality about Tolkien's writing is that it fuels up the reader's imagination in a very unique way. Each of us has a different representation for the places and characters he brought to life through his books. He wrote about this quality in "On Fairy-Stories" (which is included in Faerie).

Tolkien's particular brand of storytelling relies on very evocative details that hark back to the reader's personal experience while leaving some room for the reader's imagination to fill in the gaps. That's why it's so hard for any illustrator to come up with an illustration that is 'true' to the text. Consider the Balrog for instance, the description is very evocative but it doesn't tell us exactly how it looks.

It's a great lesson for any DM actually because one thing that is tricky as a DM is giving the right amount of information so that the players will be able to picture the scene while maintaining the necessary rythm for the game to work. The principle that Tolkien's storytelling demonstrates clearly applies.