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Comment by huytersd | Hacker News Reader

Is there a mention of any elvish kids at all in all of his work?

The reason Eldar children are rare is that elves progress through childhood and youth at the same rate as humans, then have an indefinite adulthood. So for an elf that lives say 2k years, they spend 1% of their life as a child.

I’m sorry but that would mean myself, my parents, and my grandparents would all look the same age.

Like my grandmothers high school history teacher could be marry my son.

Creepy.

I don't see why that's "creepy", just because it seems weird to you and too hard to contemplate. In a future world where people stop aging at adulthood, this would be normal: everyone would seem to be 25 or 30, and there could be huge age-gaps in relationships. Why is that wrong?

In practice, however, age itself would probably become valuable on the dating market. Since people would look young indefinitely (until some tragic accident), youth probably wouldn't be valued any more, but quite the opposite: older people would have valuable and interesting life experience, and probably better finances too thanks to compound interest. So your grandmother's high school teacher might not be that interested in your son because he's too young and inexperienced.

Another thing that would likely happen is that relationships would no longer be assumed to be life-long. We already have accepted divorce pretty well these days, but in the ageless future, it'll probably be normal for marriage-type relationships to have pre-agreed time limits.

Neuroplasticity, and the loss thereof with age would cause older elves to get quite ornery and unsociable. The only active elvish couple depicted is Galadriel and Celeborn.

Tolkien actually wrote a lot on this sort of stuff, you can find it in the Nature of Middle Earth. Elven marriages are, however, lifelong. Even the death of a spouse did not permit remarriage, except in on very exceptional case.

FWIW, Elven childhood and growth was actually also much longer than human childhood, but it was quick in the eyes of the Elves.

> Even the death of a spouse did not permit remarriage

that's because on death elves reincarnate in Valinor. The exception was given when the spouse refused to reincarnate (and a lot of pain resulted form that incident).

Arwen is over 2000 years old when she marries Aragon. She is related to him by her grandfather Eärendil (which is a grand, grand grand ancestor of Aragon through Elros).

Ouch nobody called my out of my misspelling (twice) of Aragorn. I'll surrender my Nerd card.

There’s nothing creepy about most relationships. Most of the world had women getting married at 14. We just put a stop to it because we don’t like the power imbalance but there’s nothing inherently wrong with it.

The youngest named character would be Nellas who briefly befriended young Turin in the woods of Doriath.

No elves are portrayed during their actual childhood, but elvish geneaologies are clearly stated. For example, Celebrian, the wife of Elrond and mother of Elladan, Elrohir, and Arwen, is the daughter of Celeborn and Galadriel.

Incidentally, Tolkien portrayed many half-elves during their childhood. Elwing, Elured, and Elurin were young children when the sons of Fëanor destroyed Doriath. Eärendil fled the destruction of Gondolin as a young child. And Elrond and Elros were young children when the remaining sons of Fëanor destroyed the Havens of Sirion. Bad luck runs in the family, or something.

> Tolkien portrayed many half-elves during their childhood.

Yes, unfortunately we don't have more detailed portrayals since those passages in The Silmarillion are very brief.

I had the same thought: iirc, all the “elf children” Tolkien wrote about (albeit briefly) were half- elves. I can retcon explanations but have to wonder if Tolkien was intentional about that.

Thinking from a purely authorial standpoint, half-elves give a connection to the human audience, while full-elves are meant to be out of reach and ethereal.

The reason you would not write a scene with your ultimate villain on the toilet is the same impulse Tolkien may have felt here.

I think just not many elves where born in Middle-Earth, at least among the Noldor, which are the focus of a lot of JRRT stories.

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