Quote:
Originally Posted by Nogrod
Most old mythologies are keen to point out the weaknessess in the We - even if we are the sons of gods or centers of the universe... So Tolkien only follows a traditional path there by making Dunedain and elves having vices. The idea of the "chosen ones" being (needing or striving to be) perfect is later Christian addendum.
In the old world of mythologies you could be superior but still imperfect.  |
Indeed. Nonetheless, I do not believe that modern applicability should so lightly be thrust upon Tolkien's races and cultures. As Skip Spense points out, the supposed 'immortality' of the elves is juxtuposed against the mortality of men so that the dialogue of death, if you will, can be played out.
"Which should envy the other?" asks an Elven ambassador to Numenor in the Akallabeth. Who indeed. If Tolkien had absolutely, really valued the Elves above humans, made them true 'ubermenschen' surely he would have validated their immortality as something men do not have, for example because of the "fall"
Interestingly, Tolkien does an about turn on Christian mythology at this point and says that both the mortality of Humans and the immortality of Elves is simply "the fulfilment of their being" no more a 'punishment' than death is in real life. The drama plays out precisely because the Numenorians, who you call 'superior' perceive the Elves to be ubermensche pretty much. The Numenorians attempt to forcibly take immortality and they fail because of it. They fail not because they are 'lesser' beings, or 'unworthy' or 'deserving of punishment', they fail because they desire something entirely unnatural to them, something entirely foreign, somthing that is in no way a fulfillment of their being. Were men to step upon Valinor they would (something like this) die a quicker death as moths do when exposed to bright light.
Similarly, the 'ubermensche' Elves fail, ultimately, in their quest to impose immortality and unchangefullness on the finite world, Middle Earth, about them. With the breaking of their magic, they must leave Middle earth or accept it for what it is and wither away. Slowly, the Elves of middle earth would 'fade' away, unable to control the change of the world around them that is in reality utterly foreign to them.
My point is that social ideas about ubermensche and the like are not particularly relevant to Tolkien, and if the ideas are superficially there, they are so to fulfill a purpose other than simply to say : these guys are superior to the rest of you.
Often they are there as a result of other themes.
Words like "superiority", "ubermensche" etc fall short of explaining Tolkien's characters and races-ultimately it is for reasons of the theme, generally speaking, of 'death and the desire for deathlessness' on the part of Humans and Elves, that is responsible for much of this.
I believe Tolkien was in fact more aware of what he was doing than perhaps many would think...