Culture news Are elves really immortal in The Lord of the Rings? Nothing is less sure !
The peoples of Middle-earth have their specificities, their culture and their art of living. Some forged alliances, others clashed. Several species can even mate with each other. However, immortality is only offered by JRR Tolkien to certain chosen ones including the elves. But are they really immortal?
The immortality of the Elves according to JRR Tolkien
Anyone who has watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy directed by Peter Jackson once or more knows this. One of the great differences between Men and Elves lies in the mortality of the former and the immortality of the latter. Human beings in Middle-earth are born, live and die in the same way as those on our good old planet Earth. But what really about the elven people?
The Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) leaves no doubt that the fate of the Elves mortally wounded on the battlefield… they die. Elves do not “age” (in the first sense of the term) and are capable of recovering from wounds that are certainly fatal to humans. But they can die in battle. They then return to Valinor – the earthly paradise of the Elves – and go through a period of rest/purification. Following this afterlife, they find a material body identical to the previous one and return to Middle-earth.
Elves who do not die violently end up seeing their spirits overwhelm and then consume their material bodies. Tired of Middle-earth, they sometimes leave the Gray Havens on their own and travel to Valinor while others wishing to stay end up losing their bodies. At the end of time, the Elves will become invisible to mortal peoples unless they wish to be seen by some of them.
There is a particular case in the universe imagined by JRR Tolkien: that of an immortal Elf bonding with a mortal Man (or Woman). In the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings is “The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen”. JRR Tolkien tells the story of “Aragorn” and Arwen. For love of the leader of the Dunedain of the North, the daughter of the half-Elf Elrond abandons her immortality and the bride thus becoming the queen of Elves and Men in Middle-earth.
See you in Middle Earth in 2024
The second half of 2024 will be lived to the rhythm of weekly broadcasts of episodes of the second season of the Rings of Power series on Amazon Prime Video. Then, the Lord of the Rings saga will turn to cinemas in order to project the animated film The War of Rohirrim which is scheduled for release on December 11, 2024. This film directed by Kenji Kamiya (Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, Star Wars Visions, Blade Runner Black Lotus) takes place 261 years before the events of The Fellowship of the Ring and focuses on the military exploits of the King of Rohan Helm Hammerhand against the armies of Dunlendings.